National Parliaments On Their Ways To Europe

Gennemgang af de nationale parlamenters tilpasning til udviklingen i EU's institutioner og procedurer

European integration is progressing at an even more rapid rate. Accompanying this progress is an increasing debate about the institutional shape and legitimacy of this new political order. This debate is driven in part by conflicting values, and in part by uncertainty. This book addresses the question of parliamentary involvement in the emerging European political system by looking at both national and European levels of parliamentary representation. In doing this, it gives greaterattention to the role of national parliaments than is usual in discussions about democracy in the European Union.Based on interviews and surveys among members of parliament at the European level, and in eleven member states, it analyses the role of parliaments and parliamentarians, the linkages between national citizenry and the European level, and the problems and perspectives of institutional change. The book is provides analyses of the views from within concerning European integration and concentrates of three dimensions: the MPs themselves; their embeddedness in the process; and theirperspectives on institutional structures. These views from within offer new insights and answers to institutional problems in the European Union and the so-called democratic deficit.

This volume discusses how national parliaments have adapted to the effects of the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty.

This guide is intended for busy legal practitioners and all other professionals who are involved in the criminal justice system and who require quick reference to the provisions of the 1994 Act.

The acquisition of increased powers by the European Parliament has raised the spectre of a `competition legislature' for national parliaments, and even the threat of a democratic deficit at the national level. At this critical moment it is vital to recognise and reinforce the ways in which the institutions of the European Union are politically accountable to member States. In this profound and revealing analysis of the participation by domestic legislatures in policymaking and legislative processes at the European level, Adam Jan Cygan focuses on the evolving means by which the legislatures of Germany and the United Kingdom are responding to the increased competence of the European Union. This technique allows him to highlight such factors as the following: the procedures of European scrutiny committees in the United Kingdom Houses of Parliament and the German Bundestag; the accountability of national ministers for decisions taken in the European Council of Ministers; the role of sub-national governments, as revealed in both the formal federal system of Germany and the devolved administrations of the United Kingdom, in European affairs; and the continuing impact of Treaty provisions and informal cooperation between member States. National Parliaments in an Integrated Europe clearly demonstrates that, contrary to some prevailing beliefs, national parliaments are not necessarily destined to become mere administrative institutions. In fact, the national initiatives and procedures analysed here reveal a firm commitment to compel the attention of the European Commission and the European Parliament toward national and even sub-national accountability.

This book presents a wide range of perspectives on the role of national parliaments in EU politics and policy-making. Many accounts of the role of national parliaments portray them as passive victims of European integration. This study instead examines their role within the EU policy-making process, looking at efforts to address perceived democratic and information ‘deficits'. Bringing together leading scholars in the fields of European studies, public policy analysis, and legislative research, this new volume provides: a thorough and wide-ranging synthetic analysis of the position of national parliaments within the EU policy-making structures a range of detailed country studies, including for the first time an analysis of the new member state parliaments in Central and Eastern Europe an analysis of the significant changes to the position of national parliaments brought about by the recent Convention process and the provisions of the EU’s Constitutional Treaty. Making an important contribution to an emerging comparative literature on the parliamentary dimension to EU public policy-making, National Parliaments within the Enlarged European Union will interest students and researchers in the fields of European integration, EU politics, and public policy analysis.

This book provides an original argument that rejects the idea of national MPs having but one ‘standard’ mode of representation. It acknowledges the national electoral connection, but considers representation beyond national borders. The author empirically investigates such patterns of representation in MPs’ parliamentary speech-making behavior and their attitudes in Austria, Germany, Ireland and the UK. The book analyzes representative claims in parliamentary debates on the Constitutional Treaty, the Lisbon Treaty and the Eurozone crisis, and relies on qualitative interviews with members of the European affairs and budget committees. It finds a Eurosceptic Europeanization in that national MPs from the Eurosceptic left particularly represent other EU citizens.

This book engages in the vivid debate about the role of nationalparliaments in the future European democracy. These parliaments are widely regarded to be essential in reducing the European Union's democratic deficit, but it remains unclear how their function should be organized. The purpose of this volume is to contribute to such a regime on the basis of a comparative analysis of scrutiny systems, as they exist today.