The national parliaments of the European Union are those legislatures responsible for each member state of the European Union (EU). They have a certain degree of institutionalised influence which was expanded under the Treaty of Lisbon to include greater ability to scrutinise proposed European Union law.
Originally, national members of Parliament (MPs) were appointed to the European Parliament (EP) as Member of the European Parliament (MEPs). In 1979 the first direct elections were held, however national MPs still tended to contest these leading to them holding a "dual mandate". As the work load of an MEP increased, the number of MEPs who were also national MPs decreased and since 2009 it has been banned in all member states. [1]
In 1989 MPs from national parliaments and the European Parliament established the Conference of European Community Affairs Committees (COSAC) to maintain contact between national parliaments and the MEPs. COSAC continues to meet every six months and has now gained the right to submit contributions and examine proposals on EU law relating to Justice and Home Affairs. [2] Aside from COSAC, relations between the EP and national parliaments are dealt with by the Conference of Presidents. The EP seeks to keep national parliament's fully informed of the EPs activities and some EP committees regularly invites national MPs to discuss proposals. [3]
However COSAC itself has little institutional structure and is largely leaderless meaning it is difficult for it to exercise its powers. Any concerted response tends to be spontaneous and self organised. [4]
Because the Maastricht Treaty of 1993 expanded the EU's competencies into areas of justice and home affairs, the treaty outlined the importance of exchanges between the European parliament and its national counterparts in a declaration attached to the treaty. This declaration asked national governments to ensure proposals for EU law were passed on to national parliaments with sufficient time for them to be scrutinised by MP and that contacts between these MPs and MEPs, began with COSAC, be stepped up. [2]
This was strengthened under the Treaty of Amsterdam in a protocol stating all European Commission consultation documents be promptly forwarded to national parliaments. They then have a six-week period to discuss legislative proposals, starting from the publication of the proposal to it appearing on the agenda of the Council of the European Union. [2]
The Treaty of Lisbon, in force from 1 December 2009, expanded the role of national parliaments. [5] It sets out a right to information (TEU Article 12, TFEU Articles 70 and 352 and Protocol 1 [6] ), monitoring of subsidiarity – see below – (TFEU Article 69 [6] ), scrutinising policy in freedom, justice and security with the ability for a national parliament to veto a proposal (TEFU Articles 81, 85 and 88), taking part in treaty amendment (TEU Article 48 [6] ) (including blocking a change of voting system to ordinary legislative procedure under the passerelle clause [7] ), being involved with enlargement and generally being involved in dialogue with EU institutions (TEU Article 12 [6] ).
Their power to enforce the principle of subsidiarity is of particular note. The principle is that, unless EU institutions have exclusive power, action will only be taken at a European level if it were to be more effective than acting at a national level. If a national parliament believes this principle has been broken, then this triggers a two-stage procedure: if one-third of national parliaments agree that a proposal breaks the principle, then the commission has to withdraw, amend or maintain it. If the commission maintains its proposal and a majority of parliaments continue to object, then the commission will have to explain its reasons. However it may still continue, as this power does not challenge the legislative role of the Council and European Parliament. [5] The first time the objections-threshold of 1/3 was reached was in 2012 with the Monti II Regulation. [8]
Prior to the Lisbon Treaty's enforcement, COSAC ran tests on the subsidiarity system to test and improve their response time to a question subsidiarity. Tests ended once Lisbon came into force and national parliament's responses to EU legislative proposals have become minimal. Although COSAC is primarily technical, it has been started to become more political especially since the Lisbon Treaty. They have begun to discuss more general political events and foreign policy issues. It is debated whether, in the limited time COSAC meetings have, it should be discussing subjects where it has such limited influence. [4]
As the Western European Union (WEU) was integrated into the European Union's Common Security and Defence Policy, the European Parliament took on a greater role. However, the Assembly of the Western European Union was retained to hold members to account for military missions. With the European Parliament not see as sufficient to take over this role, there was some desire to see the WEU's Assembly retained, rather than abolished as the European Parliament wished. However, with the closure of the WEU (and its assembly) in 2010, there were proposals to ensure that EU cooperation between national parliaments took over its role informally through regular meetings of defence-interested national MPs. [9] [10] [11] The Lisbon Treaty calls for COSAC to establish a body to scrutinise European foreign and defence policy; however no agreement has been reached. [4]
There are a number of differences between the national parliaments of member states, owing to the various historical development of each country. 15 states have unicameral parliaments, with the remainders choosing bicameral systems.
Unicameral or lower houses are always directly elected, whereas an upper house may be directly elected (e.g. the Senate of Poland); or indirectly elected, for example, by regional legislatures (e.g. the Federal Council of Austria); or non-elected, but representing certain interest groups (e.g. the National Council of Slovenia).
Furthermore, most states are Parliamentary democracies, hence the executive is drawn from the Parliament. However, in some cases a more presidential system is followed and hence there are separate elections for the head of government and the Parliament, leading to greater discontinuity, yet more independence, between the two branches of government. However, only Cyprus follows a fully presidential system, with France following a semi-presidential system.
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union, it adopts European legislation, following a proposal by the European Commission. The Parliament is composed of 705 members (MEPs). It represents the second-largest democratic electorate in the world, with an electorate of 375 million eligible voters in 2009.
The Treaty on European Union, commonly known as the Maastricht Treaty, is the foundation treaty of the European Union (EU). Concluded in 1992 between the then-twelve member states of the European Communities, it announced "a new stage in the process of European integration" chiefly in provisions for a shared European citizenship, for the eventual introduction of a single currency, and for common foreign and security policies. Although these were widely seen to presage a "federal Europe", the focus of constitutional debate shifted to the later 2007 Treaty of Lisbon. In the wake of the Eurozone debt crisis unfolding from 2009, the most enduring reference to the Maastricht Treaty has been to the rules of compliance – the "Maastricht criteria" – for the currency union.
The Western European Union was the international organisation and military alliance that succeeded the Western Union (WU) after the 1954 amendment of the 1948 Treaty of Brussels. The WEU implemented the Modified Brussels Treaty. During the Cold War, the Western Bloc included the WEU member-states, plus the United States and Canada, as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The Treaty of Nice was signed by European leaders on 26 February 2001 and came into force on 1 February 2003.
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The Treaty of Amsterdam, officially the Treaty of Amsterdam amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties establishing the European Communities and certain related acts, was signed on 2 October 1997, and entered into force on 1 May 1999; it made substantial changes to the Treaty of Maastricht, which had been signed in 1992.
The political structure of the European Union (EU) is similar to a confederation, where many policy areas are federalised into common institutions capable of making law; the competences to control foreign policy, defence policy, or the majority of direct taxation policies are mostly reserved for the twenty-seven state governments. These areas are primarily under the control of the EU's member states although a certain amount of structured co-operation and coordination takes place in these areas. For the EU to take substantial actions in these areas, all Member States must give their consent. Union laws that override State laws are more numerous than in historical confederations; however, the EU is legally restricted from making law outside its remit or where it is no more appropriate to do so at a state or local level (subsidiarity) when acting outside its exclusive competences. The principle of subsidiarity does not apply to areas of exclusive competence.
The apportionment of seats within the European Parliament to each member state of the European Union is set out by the EU treaties. According to European Union treaties, the distribution of seats is "degressively proportional" to the population of the member states, with negotiations and agreements between member states playing a role. Thus the allocation of seats is not strictly proportional to the size of a state's population, nor does it reflect any other automatically triggered or fixed mathematical formula. The process can be compared to the composition of the electoral college used to elect the President of the United States of America in that, pro rata, the smaller state received more places in the electoral college than the more populous states.
The Davignon report, also referred to as the Luxembourg report, published on 27 October 1970, was a report on the future foreign policy of European Economic Community member nations. It was written by a council chaired by Étienne Davignon of the Belgian Foreign Office. The committee was appointed by the Council of the European Communities to make proposals on political cooperation between the member states. It recommended that member states should try to speak with a single voice on international problems, a proposal that was approved by all six member governments. It resulted first in European Political Cooperation and later in the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy in 1992.
The Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union (COSAC) is a conference of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and national Members of Parliament (MPs) who are drawn from parliamentary committees responsible for European Union affairs.
The Treaty of Brussels, also referred to as the Brussels Pact, was the founding treaty of the Western Union (WU) between 1948 and 1954, when it was amended as the Modified Brussels Treaty (MTB) and served as the founding treaty of the Western European Union (WEU) until its termination in 2010. The treaty provided for the organisation of military, economic, social and cultural cooperation among member states as well as a mutual defence clause.
The 2009 European Parliament election in Italy was held on Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 June 2009, as decided by the Italian government on 18 December 2008. Italy elected 72 members of the European Parliament (MEPs).
The Assembly of the Western European Union, also called the European Security and Defence Assembly, was a parliamentary assembly for delegations from the national parliaments of the member countries of the Western European Union (WEU), a security and defence organisation. Its final session was on 10 May 2011.
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The Interparliamentary EU information exchange (IPEX), is a platform for the exchange of information between EU national parliaments as well as the European Parliament concerning issues related to the European Union, especially in light of the provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon. The Treaty of Lisbon explicitly sets out the role of the national parliaments in the "Protocol on the role of national Parliaments in the European Union" and in the "Protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality".
The Committee on European Affairs and Oversight of the European Funds (CEAOEF) is one of the 17 standing committees in the 41st National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria.
Monika Panayotova is a Doctor of Political Science, with interests in the field of the EU security and defence policy. Bulgarian politician – Monika Panayotova has been appointed as Deputy Minister for the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU 2018, responsible for the relations with the European Parliament during the Bulgaria's presidency since June 28, 2017.
