Parliamentary Behaviour during EU Treaty Negotiations in a Historical Comparative Perspective: The Cases of the Austrian and Luxembourgish Legislatures

Until recently, studies on the Europeanisation of national parliaments mostly tended to focus on the evolution of their institutional capacities rather than on their actual behaviour in EU affairs. This paper seeks to identify variations in behavioural patterns between the Austrian and Luxembourgish legislatures. The historical comparative perspective is mainly based on political and societal similarities between the countries. Based on historical institutionalism, the Paper aims to analyze the evolution of parliamentary involvement in the field of European affairs over a period running from the negotiations on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe until the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the EMU. By including both institutional and motivational indicators, the objective consists of identifying the extent to which parliamentary activity in EU matters has been challenged in the framework of EU treaties. The following questions are addressed: On which formal/informal tools did parliamentarians rely to scrutinize EU treaty negotiations? What institutional and motivational factors influenced parliamentary involvement in EU affairs? What parliamentary initiatives have been taken to improve participation in EU affairs? The project is exclusively based on qualitative data, i.e. interviews with parliamentarians and civil servants from parliamentary administrations. Thereby the paper aims to produce empirical in-depth knowledge on actual parliamentary behaviour in each studied country. Thus, the assessment of parliamentary participation in EU affairs through the lenses of parliamentarians’ motivations and their institutional context helps to investigate the parliamentary “black box”.