The European Union (EU) constitutes a locus of political authority and power which transforms policies and politics in its member states. The question about how national parliaments adapt to the ever-increasing importance of the EU for domestic decision-making has been at the center of the discussion about the EU’s democratic deficit. While much is known about how parliaments have responded to the challenge of European integration institutionally, e.g. by improving rights for timely access to information, we possess much less knowledge about how and to what extent individual parliamentarians exploit their opportunities to become involved in EU politics. In this paper we investigate the extent to which German parliamentarians in the Bundestag and in seven regional parliaments (Landtage) adapt to the EU’s multi-level polity. Firstly, we assess German parliamentarians’ attitudes towards European integration and the political salience they attribute to EU politics. Secondly, we map the national, transnational, and supranational channels, both within and across parties, which federal and regional parliamentarians employ to become involved in EU policy-making. Finally, we will test the power of individual-level as well structural (government/opposition, Europeanization of policy area) variables in explaining the extent to and the arenas in which German parliamentarians become involved in EU multi-level politics. To empirically inform these questions we rely on original survey data collected by the authors with members of the German Bundestag and parliamentarians from seven selected Länder legislatures. Our discussion of the results will address normative debates on the de-parliamentarization and democratic deficit of EU multi-level politics and positive debates on parliaments’ power in holding their governments to account and parliamentarians’ ability to exert influence in EU policy-making. Regarding the latter, the paper will discuss differential effects on regional and federal parliamentarians.
