“I am proud of what we have achieved together with the national parliaments. The political dialogue both contributes to raising awareness on European issues in national parliaments and to give the Commission a better view of the national political landscapes. This brings Europe a step closer to its citizens.”

Commission President José Manuel Barroso, 2009

National parliaments have two main reasons to be involved in the EU legislative process. First, national legislators are the ones in charge of implementing EU directives in the national legal order. Second and most importantly, members of parliaments are supposed to represent their citizens. Involving national representatives in the decision-making at the EU level was, therefore, perceived as a possible solution against the democratic crisis of European Institutions. The more the EU was integrating, the more legislative powers were passed from the national to the EU level. Thus, national legislators were described as the “victims” of integration.

In the 2000’, the then president of the commission, Manuel Barroso, engaged himself to better involve national parliaments in the policy-making process at the European level. One of the most visible actions was in 2006 when he announced the creation of a substantive political dialogue. It gives the possibility for national parliaments to send opinions to the Commission on any documents produced by the institutions, especially on EU legislation drafts. The Political Dialogue impose on EU institutions to send any documents to national parliaments. Today, this process is simplified via the platform [find name again]. National chambers have the possibility to send opinions on any of those documents. Yet, the Commission has no obligation to consider those opinions. This process has no binding effect. 

Another important tool for involvement of National Parliaments in EU legislation is the Early Warning System. It was established in 2009 by the Lisbon treaty. Contrary to the political dialogue, the EWS is instituted in the EU treaties and have a legally binding effect. The early warning system is reserved to the control of subsidiarity. When national parliaments consider than the legislative proposal violate the subsidiarity principle. Those specific communications from national parliaments to the EU Commission concerning the control of the subsidiarity principle are named ‘reasoned opinion’. When a certain number of reasoned opinions are sent on a same legislation draft, the Commission has an obligation to give further justification about its draft or should modify it. Once the threshold is reached, it starts a procedure call “the yellow card”. So far 3 yellow cards have been launched since 2009. Yet none lead to the revision of the Commission proposal.

Nevertheless, these communications between national parliaments and the EU legislative process raised come questions. The first question concerns the substantive ability of national parliaments to influence EU legislation. None of the 3 “yellow cards’ procedures led to a modification of the EU legislative draft. Or at least the commission did not justify the modification of its draft on the basis of the subsidiarity principle. Some complained have raised from national parliaments on their effective power to control the use of the principle of subsidiarity. In fact the wording of the treaty explicitly mention “If reasoned opinions represent one third (one quarter in the area of freedom, security and justice) of the all the votes (each national Parliament shall have two votes), the draft must be reviewed. After such a review, the legislative initiator may decide to maintain, amend or withdraw the draft, but should motivate its decision.” (Article 7, Protocol 2 TEU). This last part of the article let the final decision to be in the hands of the EU legislators. The latest can freely decided to ignore the recommendation of the citizens representatives. This latest mention leads to the question : was the Early Warning System introduced as a make-up against the democratic deficit ? or was it meant to effectively involve national legislators, but avoiding a constant blockade by them ? was the Commission seen as more cooperative as it actually act now ? 

Secondly, the action of the national parliaments at the European level is not well known by its citizens. Those are not aware of the influence of EU policies in their national legal order, nor on the influence of national parliamentarians on EU legislation. This lack of awareness could come from a lack of communication between the parliaments and their mandators, or to the complexity of the policies involved. Yet, a better communication towards the citizens is essential. It would improve their understanding of the mechanisms at stake, and their understanding of the role of their deputies. They would, thus, be able to take these information into consideration during elections and have better representation of their opinion. It would also create an incentive for parliamentarians to get involved in the EU decision process, creating a better coordination between the citizens expectations and EU legislation. Therefore, what blocks the communication from national parliaments on their action in the EU decision-making process ? Finally, some parliaments are more involved in EU policies than others. National parliaments are making very different use of the political dialogue. Yearly, the 10 most active parliaments are sending 80% of all opinions. This unequal participation is rising an important question : are all EU citizens defend in the same manners ? If one day, these participation mechanisms become effective, will citizens of certain countries have more influence than others on the decision taken at the European level ? The reasons why some national parliaments get more involved than other stay today unclear. Some scholars argued than the level of contestation over EU integration, the level of division on the right-left scale, the level of integration of a country in a policy of the EU, or even the institutional capacity (budget, administration) of a parliaments had positive impact on their participation in the EU legislation-making process. Yet, what are the incentives to contribution rest confused. In a situation where a more substantial use of the political dialogue or the early warning system would be genuine, we need to insure the equal opportunity of all EU citizens in the influence of EU legislation.

By Mélanie Véron-Fougas – A 1^st year Master student in European Governance at the Universities of Konstanz and Utrecht.