The Treaty of Lisbon provides national parliaments with an opportunity to play a more important role in formulating EU policies. Yet, it remains unclear to what extent the formal provisions will be translated into political practice. Drawing on actor-centered institutionalism and Hirschman’s & Dowding’s concepts of “exit”, “voice” and “neglect”, the author analyzes the application of these new rules in domestic legislatures. On the basis of “most different” case selection strategy and exploratory interviews with the representatives of national parliaments (October-December 2010), the legislatures of Sweden, Czech Republic and Romania were selected, exemplifying a whole range of strength of EU member-states’ parliaments. In order to assess the impact of the Lisbon Treaty, the paper analyzes the scrutiny of the “Green Paper on pensions” (COM 2010 0365) and Proposal for directive on seasonal third-country migrants (COM 2010 0379) in the parliaments of Sweden, Czech Republic and Romania. The author attempts to discern whether the “letter and the spirit” of the Lisbon Treaty have been used in order to increase the influence of parliaments over the respective executives in formulating EU policy. The research concentrates on the relations between the European Affairs committees and other sectoral committees, role of the opposition, executive-legislative relations, political influence of parliamentary administration, inter-parliamentary cooperation as key variables that reflect the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty rules in political practice. The paper assesses the empirical material gathered during fieldwork in Brussels (Fall 2011) and Sweden, Czech Republic, Romania (first half of 2012).
