Cooperation Between Parliaments after the Lisbon Treaty: What Scope is There?

Abstract

Traditionally the poor relations in European integration, parliaments collectively have been significant winners from the Lisbon Treaty, leading some to refer it to as the “Treaty of Parliaments” (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/webnp/). National parliaments, which previously had little role in European legislation, now have a number of strategies at their disposal to influence policy making at the EU level. Meanwhile, the European Parliament, a gainer in successive European treaty reforms from the 1986 Single European Act onwards, saw its powers further augmented. But what do these changes mean in practice? After all, formal powers mean little if the recipients do not utilise them. While MEPs have a long track-record of maximising any powers they acquire, members of national parliaments have not been engaged in European affairs other than to amend treaties, while their domestic powers had shrunk as the integration process developed. Thus, they have little (recent) experience of utilising new competences. This panel will probe the question to what extent the Lisbon Treaty lives up to its promises of developing the parliamentary dimension of the EU by combining conceptual and empirical papers. By putting the focus on non-legislative issues such as on Foreign Affairs and Budgetary matters we will examine whether such salient issues actually escape parliamentary control or whether we can discern joint efforts between legislatures on the national and European level. Furthermore, we look at the relations both horizontally between national parliaments and vertically between national parliaments and the EP in order to understand fully the nature of parliamentary engagement in the multi-level framework of the post-Lisbon European order. Contributions will be by practitioners and academics.

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