Debating the rule of law in the Tweede Kamer: between European values and Dutch national interests?

National Parliaments play a vital role in defending democracy. Recently, the rule of law crisis in Europe has brought the subject to the forefront of political deliberations in several national parliaments across the EU. This paper is a case study on debates around the rule of law as these have occurred in the context of the Dutch Parliament. The paper more specifically looks at the political discussions taking place in the EU Affairs Committee focusing on the role of political parties in exercising democratic control when it comes to their national governments and the European Union. The paper intends to bridge the gap in the literature on the rule of law drawing on post-functionalist theory to examine the salience of related terms as these pertain to debates taking place in the Dutch Parliament. What is the salience of the rule of law and to what extent does the NP in Netherlands attach importance or draw attention to it as political issue? The paper argues that the salience of the “rule of law” as a key concept in recent debates in Europe, has led to increased dissensus between political actors, primarily viewed in the context of government vs. opposition parties. Moreover, the analysis shows that the national parliament in the Netherlands appears to exercise robust democratic control towards the Government ensuring that decisions taken on the EU level are in line with Dutch national interests. The paper maps the positions of the key political parties involved in these debates and applies quantitative text analysis to gauge the occurrence and frequency of the terms related to the rule of law crisis in parliamentary debates to explain their status. This paper draws on an original RED-SPINEL dataset collected by the author focusing on national parliaments.