Olivier Rozenberg

To Scrutinise or Not to Scrutinise? Explaining Variation in EU-Related Activities in National Parliaments

There is an on-going debate in the literature as to whether national parliaments can and do play an active role in EU policy-making. The main reason for persistent disagreement is the lack of comparative empirical data on parliamentary behaviour in EU affairs. The article aims to contribute to this debate by presenting the first comparative quantitative data on European affairs activities of national parliaments and by explaining the empirical variation. The development of a unique dataset including all 27 national parliaments allows a series of explanatory variables to be tested for the level of parliamentary activity at both the committee and the plenary levels. The analysis shows that institutional strength in EU affairs plays an important role. Overall, however, EU activities can be better explained with a mix of institutional capacities and motivational incentives. The specific combinations vary for different types of activities.

Managing the house: the Presidency, agenda control and policy activism in the European Commission

ABSTRACT Although the importance of international organizations is well-established, the specific contribution made to their policy outputs by administrative as opposed to political actors is rarely investigated. Still less attention is paid to how intra-organizational factors within international administrations affect the latter’s capacity to influence those outputs. Even in the case of the European Union, where the European Commission’s power over decisional outputs has been a long-standing interest, this issue has not been fully explored. Scholars have focused on horizontal factors, but have not addressed how vertical relations affect the Commission’s policy activism and therefore its influence on EU outputs. By examining how the transformation of power relations within the Commission has changed as a consequence of the strengthening of the Commission Presidency, this contribution fills that lacuna. Showing how a strong President has been able to control the Commission’s output, it demonstrates the importance of vertical relations as a variable.

Not Only a Battleground: Parliamentary Oral Questions Concerning Defence Policies in Four Western Democracies

Oral questions are usually seen as a procedure designed for political conflict. Yet question time may serve other purposes depending on the institutional setting, the political context and the policy field. By comparing the use of oral questions on the defence issue in the national parliaments of four Western democracies, the paper identifies a specific characteristic of questioning in each lower house: political conflict in Germany, internal dissent in the United Kingdom, reward of policy expertise in Spain and local issues in France. Such diverse uses of questioning procedures impact differently on the quality of the accountability process.

Fighting Back? And, If So, How? Measuring Parliamentary Strength and Activity in EU Affairs

In recent decades, national parliaments — formerly the ‘poor losers’ of European integration — have learned ‘to fight back’ and obtained greater participation rights in domestic European policymaking.1 Since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, national parliaments even have an explicit role in the European Union’s (EU) legislative process, in particular as the new guardians of the subsidiarity principle. However, despite these institutional changes — and a growing body of academic literature on the subject — the debate over whether national parliaments can and do play an effective role in EU policymaking continues. On the one hand, their expanded participation rights have provided national parliaments with greater institutional opportunities to control their governments in EU affairs. In addition, they can try to exert at least some, albeit mainly collective, influence at the EU level. On the other hand, the literature has consistently highlighted the challenges faced by national parliaments in making use of their participation rights, such as the highly technical character and complexity of EU issues, the lack of transparency in EU negotiations or the lack of electoral and party strategic incentives to get involved.

Frankreichs Suche nach einem europäischen Narrativ

1er paragraphe : In regelmasigen Abstanden vermitteln die Wahlen zum Europaischen Parlament denEindruck, dass das Verhaltnis der Franzosischen Republik zu Europa problematisch ist.1992 wurde der Vertrag von Maastricht mit knapper Mehrheit befurwortet. 1999 zeigtesich fast jeder zweite gewahlte franzosische Europaabgeordnete den europaischen Vertra-gen gegenuber abgeneigt. 2005 setzte das ‚Non‘ der Franzosen beim Referendum demVertrag uber eine Verfassung fur Europa (Verfassungsvertrag) ein Ende. 2014 ist schlies-lich der Front National, eine rechtsextreme Partei, welche den Euro ablehnt, Sieger derEuropawahl, gemessen sowohl an der Anzahl der franzosischen Stimmen als auch derFrankreich zustehenden Sitze im Europaischen Parlament. In Anbetracht der historischenSchlusselrolle, welche Frankreich beim Fortgang der europaischen Integration seit den1950er Jahren gespielt hat,1 uberrascht diese Reihe von Ereignissen. Diese Haufung vonKrisen und Spannungen seit uber 20 Jahren lasst vermuten, dass sie nicht nur die Ableh-nung der Exekutive oder die Sorgen der Bevolkerung in Anbetracht der wirtschaftlichenSchwierigkeiten des Landes ausdrucken. Vielmehr ist davon auszugehen, dass diese Skep-sis gegenuber Europa tiefer liegende Ursachen hat und unmittelbar mit dem franzosischenVerstandnis von Europa zusammenhangt. Die franzosischen Eliten haben ein offentlichesNarrativ zur Begrundung der europaischen Integration geformt, das mit der Formel ‚Euro-pa der Macht‘ (‚Europe puissance‘) zusammengefasst werden konnte. Im Folgenden wirdder Inhalt dieses Narrativs dargestellt und verdeutlicht, inwieweit es sich abgenutzt hat,bevor die Schwierigkeiten thematisiert werden, das bestehende durch ein neues Narrativzu ersetzen

France: Supporting the Jobless – A Job for Europe

The election of Emmanuel Macron as President of France in May 2017 was clearly a defence of the EU project in front of sceptical opponents. There are now high expectations that France will have the ability to propose and lead new European initiatives.

The Belated Love of French Sociologists for Parliaments

French political science’s attraction for sociology has had two major consequences regarding legislative studies in France. First, parliaments have been understudied up to a recent period. Second, the on-going revival of legislative studies in France is characterised by strong sociological input. This chapter critically reviews this trend considering the major issues developed by French scholars: the sociology of political careers, parliamentary roles, local representation, women in politics and MPs’ entourage. After having pointed to some limits of this literature, the chapter takes back the template elaborated in the introduction of this book to subjectively identify four recent French approaches to parliaments, grounded on broad sociological schools. Those new outlooks appear to be both original, considering legislatives studies’ usual focus, and heuristic for understanding parliaments’ complex linkages to society.