WHY NATIONAL PARLIAMENTS IN THE EU SHOULD BE EMPOWERED ?

Author: Sandra Kröger, lecturer at the politics department of the University of Exeter.

"How representative institutions and actors such as parliaments and political parties can influence politics in a context of multi-level cooperation and shared sovereignty is a very important question. And indeed, there is a ‘democratic disconnect’ between domestic democratic institutions and processes and the decisions made at the EU level. Enhancing the role of National Parliaments (NPs) in EU decision-making offers a way to reconnect the integration process with the communal self-rule of the Member States and their citizens.

The normative role of National Parliaments in EU affairs

The Euro and debt crisis has no doubt accentuated the politicization of EU affairs – the increasing salience, polarization of and mobilization around related topics – indicating the definite end of the ‘permissive consensus’ according to which public support for the integration process was by and large taken for granted. The politicization of the EU has manifested itself in electoral defeats for governments deemed to have been too submissive towards contested EU level policies or in the increase of votes for Eurosceptic and anti-system parties, testifying to a ‘democratic disconnect’ between domestic democratic processes and decisions taken at the EU level. This democratic disconnect signals a tension within the integration process between the functional and economic factors that promote European integration on the one hand, and the normative, cultural and social psychological factors associated with political identity and the desire for national self-determination on the other. In short, the economic benefits of European integration did not result in an increasing acceptance of the legitimacy of gradually shifting collective decision-making to supranational institutions.The large majority of EU citizens still mainly think of themselves as nationals of a specific Member State rather than as Europeans. The NPs can play an important role in overcoming this growing tension between European integration and communal self-rule by connecting the one to the other. The legitimacy of EU level decisions rests on their satisfying the normative logic of a two level game, whereby they must be acceptable not just to the contracting national executives but also to the respective demoi they claim to represent. From this perspective, negotiators must treat each other with mutual respect as representatives of their citizens; appreciating that the legitimacy of their decisions depends on their retaining the on-going, democratic support of all their different peoples. NPs could play a role in ensuring that the decisions of governments at the EU level operate under the equal influence and control of their peoples, whilst recognizing the obligation of all other Member States to operate similarly. They can do so by providing a means for the domestication and normalization of EU policy-making. They domesticate it by taming it and bringing it home. It can be tamed by NPs not only using their subsidiarity checking powers, such as the Early Warning Mechanism (EWM), but also exercising more control over government ministers via EU Affairs and other Committees to ensure EU policies do not unduly encroach on or subvert ‘essential areas’ of domestic democratic action. They can also bring EU policy-making home and thereby normalize it so that debates about more or less integration get related to the normal domestic debates concerning the character and quality of particular policies in terms of the broader ideological commitments of citizens, particularly their position on the left-right spectrum. European integration need neither come at the cost of a loss of communal self-rule nor be regarded as in ‘inevitable’ tension with it, so that the assertion of one always comes at the expense of the other. Rather, the EU can be conceived as needing to be democratically connected to, and dependent for its legitimacy upon, the legal and political systems of the Member States. By stemming from, rather than operating against, communal self-rule, the politicization of EU affairs need not be equated anymore with Euroscepticism and the rise of populist movements, but become a positive and necessary feature of democratic politics.

Introducing the Parliamentary Legislative Initiative (PLI)

The crux does not seem to be a lack of available scrutiny powers for NPs, but a dependency on the good will of government as well as on individually disposed MPs to look after EU affairs. For parties to politicize an issue, four conditions must usually be met. First, the issue must be sufficiently salient to affect the choices of the party’s voters. Second, the party’s position on the issue needs to be congruent with that of its voters. Third, its position needs to be sufficiently internally cohesive to avoid internal conflicts. Finally, the party’s competitors need to hold different positions that allow for polarization. Hitherto these conditions have only applied to Eurosceptic parties with regard to EU affairs. Now, the Euro crisis has undoubtedly raised the salience of EU affairs and so has Brexit. However, it is quite possible that once the Euro crisis is settled and the Brexit is complete, political parties and NPs will go back to ‘business as usual’, preferring not to debate EU affairs. To avoid that from happening, and to more permanently couple the EU and domestic levels through NPs, I propose the introduction of a Parliamentary Legislative Initiative (PLI). A PLI would mean the possibility for NPs to jointly put forward legislative proposals in regard to issues that are of shared concern with the citizens of the demoi of other Member States. Such legislative proposals could be either for the EU to initiate legislation in a new policy area, or they could propose the EU modifying or withdrawing from a given policy area. A PLI would be triggered by at least 1/3 of the MPs in a minimum of 1/4 of all the NPs in the EU. The total number of NPs would be calculated by counting each chamber in bicameral systems as one and weighting the NPs of unicameral systems as two. In the case of the threshold being reached, the Commission would be obliged to put forward a legislative proposal to be considered by the ordinary legislative procedure. This threshold is set deliberately below requiring a majority of MPs in 50% of all NPs in order to stimulate debate, by empowering opposition parties as much as those in government. The legitimacy of any measure would still be guaranteed by the ordinary legislative process requiring a super majority in the Council and the EP for any proposal to be enacted.

Given the salience of EU affairs these days exists and that there will always be, to some degree, internal party division over EU policies, how would the PLI work in favor of the remaining two conditions listed above, congruence and party polarization? It would do so by allowing parties to influence EU affairs positively rather than merely in a reactive way such as the EWM. Parties in government can push their executives towards adopting proposals that go beyond the compromises they may feel obliged to make as members of an EU level super majority. Such moves could aid their bargaining power by revealing a ground swell of domestic support for particular measures. More importantly, the comparatively low threshold of a 1/3 of MPs is designed to allow opposition parties also to promote such initiatives and thereby to put forward alternative EU policies to the government. Meanwhile, the need to cooperate with other NPs will work against parties acting purely opportunistically or operating in the manner of Eurosceptic parties to protect a narrowly conceived national self-interest. The ability of parties to promote policies that align closer to their ideological identities supports both congruence with their supporters and polarization between parties. They will not be tied to merely passively supporting commitments made by their executives at the EU level. Instead, they may shape those commitments and engage directly in dialogue with other NPs as well as EU level institutions.

To the extent that the PLI fosters these developments by non-Eurosceptic parties, it will allow them to reconnect their input into EU policy-making with the domestic democratic process."