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Raunio, Tapio --- "Control and scrutiny: parliaments as agents of administrative law" [2017] ELECD 425; in Harlow, Carol; Leino, Päivi; della Cananea, Giacinto (eds), "Research Handbook on EU Administrative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 316

Book Title: Research Handbook on EU Administrative Law

Editor(s): Harlow, Carol; Leino, Päivi; della Cananea, Giacinto

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784710675

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: Control and scrutiny: parliaments as agents of administrative law

Author(s): Raunio, Tapio

Number of pages: 28

Abstract/Description:

In academic literature and political debates the notion of parliamentarization of EU governance normally refers to the gradual but consistent empowerment of the European Parliament (EP). Among the various EU institutions, the EP is undoubtedly the one that has changed most over the decades. Initially a purely consultative body with members seconded from national parliaments, the EP is now vested with significant legislative, control and budgetary powers. The Parliament shapes EU laws, particularly through the co-decision procedure (discussed below), is involved in the appointment of the Commission and can force it to resign, and decides on the EU’s budget together with the Council. Concerns about the alleged ‘democratic deficit’ and legitimacy of European integration were a key driver behind the increased powers of the EP, and the same logic explains also the more recent attention to the role of national parliaments in EU governance. Long regarded as ‘victims’ of integration, domestic legislatures have successfully fought back. At the European level, the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties in the 1990s included protocols on their information rights and on interparliamentary cooperation, with the Lisbon Treaty even assigning them the right to monitor compliance with subsidiarity through the Early Warning Mechanism (EWM). Considering the EWM and the broader upgrading of the role of national parliaments by the Lisbon Treaty, it is not surprising that there are stronger expectations regarding domestic legislatures in EU governance.