The Strength of Weak Ties or Weakening of Strong Ties? Multilevel Parliamentary Democracy in the Euro Crisis

The rise of national parliaments in the EU has been manifested in two significant changes. First, national executives have been subject to parliamentary scrutiny and parliaments have improved their capacities to cope with information asymmetry in European affairs. Second, national parliaments have engaged in transnational relations, either in bilateral contacts to other national parliaments and to the EP or in multilateral conferences or networks. These two dimensions of multilevel parliamentary democracy in the EU have ambiguous consequences. When holding their executive to account, national parliaments can tie the hands of those representatives negotiating at the European level. Accordingly, governments may be compelled to emphasize national interests in European policy-making, agreements on a joint decision often end with ineffective compromises due to inflexible negotiation positions or may even fail, and cohesion of national governments can be obstructed by increasing competition among member states. In contrast, inter-parliamentary relations constitute a kind of European public space. Although a European demos does not exist, cohesion can be reinforced by communication among representatives of the European demoi. Moreover, members of national parliaments may be able to consider the preferences or concerns of other member states thus avoiding the trap of tying hands of governments. However, the crisis of the EU has affected both executive-parliamentary relations and inter-parliamentary communication. The shifts in power relations following from these changes vary between member states. In some of them, national parliaments became stronger in fiscal policy, while in others, they can only ratify agreements among executives. Moreover, the crisis revealed the fragility of inter-parliamentary relations, lacking any institutional fundament and stability. Therefore, it is not unlikely that the rise of national parliaments undermines the cohesion among member state governments. The paper discusses these effects of the crisis and the implication for European integration.