The Parliamentarisation of Executive Rule-Making in the European Union

The aim of this paper (which is currently in the process of being researched) is to offer an explanation of the growing role of the European Parliament (EP) in executive rule-making that follows the adoption of EU legislative measures that deal with policy matters. While the role and powers of the European Parliament in the EU legislative process have grown dramatically since the introduction of the co-decision procedure, to such an extent that the EP is now one of the EU’s two legislative (and budgetary) arms, progress in the area of executive rule-making has been slow(er), controversial and perhaps not entirely satisfactory from the EP’s point of view (Christiansen and Dobbels 2013; Héritier 2012). This paper places the development of the EP’s role in executive rule making in the broader context of the EU’s gradual parliamentarisation, traces the evolution of the EP’s role since the establishment of comitology through to the post-Lisbon era and seeks to identify the drivers of the progress that has been achieved thus far. It draws on the literature on historical institutionalism and – unlike much of the extant research on the growing involvement of the EP in executive rule making – it seeks to locate the current EU level arrangement in the universe of existing models of parliamentary scrutiny of executive rule making in western federations.