![Sample our Global Development journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5929/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Global-Development.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
As the European Parliament (EP) has progressively gained powers in the last decades, the life of the institution has been marked by growing complexity and the quest for increased legitimacy. The management of information has been crucial to both, flowing in a double direction: committee specialization and ever-growing public outreach. These underpin the EP’s efforts to make up for the democratic deficit in the architecture of the European Union (EU). On the one hand, information as input derives legitimacy from efficiency. Committees have been central to handling information in order to achieve greater efficiency in legislative work. In strengthening their position and through their claims for greater transparency in the whole EU architecture, EP Committees have also strengthened the role of the EP in European governance. On the other hand, information as output derives legitimacy from public ownership. Direct elections and ever-growing powers have not automatically increased the legitimacy of the EP. Reaching out directly to citizens, both to inform and to be informed, has become an important battleground for legitimacy in supranational Europe.
Notes
1 H. Furler, ‘Opening Address by the Chairman’, in Fifth Joint Meeting of the Members of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Members of the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (Saturday, 19th October 1957). Official report of the Debate. (Strasbourg, 1957). Source: Archive of European Integration, University of Pittsburg, http://aei.pitt.edu/58024/1/COE_Meeting_Oct_1957.pdf (Access: February 23, 2019).
2 D. Dinan, Europe Recast: A History of European Union (Basingstoke, 2004), p. 89.
3 D. Dinan, Historiography of the European Parliament. Changing Perceptions of the Instituttions from the 1950s to today. European Parliament History Series (European Parliament Research Service, 2018), p. 14.
4 A. Dulphy, ‘L’opinion française et les élections européennes (1979–1999)’, in M. Catala (ed.), Histoire de la construction européenne: cinquante ans après la déclaration Schuman: colloque international de Nantes, 11, 12 et 13 mai 2000 (Nantes, 2001), p. 434.
5 D. Dinan, Historiography of the European Parliament, p. 17.
6 M.P. van Schendelen, ‘The European Parliament: Political Influence is More Than Legal Powers’, Journal of European Integration, 8.1 (1984).
7 C. Roederer-Rynning and J. Greenwood, ‘The European Parliament as a Developing Legislature: Coming of Age in Trilogues?’ Journal of European Public Policy 24, 5 (2017), pp. 740–741.
8 A. Maurer, ‘The Legislative Powers and Impact of the European Parliament’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 41, 2 (2003), pp. 236–7.
9 P. Settembri and C. Neuhold, ‘Achieving Consensus Through Committees: Does the European Parliament Manage?’ JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 47 (2009), pp. 146–8.
10 S. Hix and B. Høyland, ‘Empowerment of the European Parliament’, Annual Review of Political Science 16 (2013), pp. 171–89.
11 B. Rittberger, ‘Integration without Representation? The European Parliament and the Reform of Economic Governance in the EU’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 52, 6 (2014), p. 1181.
12 D. Phinnemore, ‘Institutions and Governance’, in N. Nugent (ed.), European Union Enlargement (London, 2004), p. 132.
13 V. Mamadouh and T. Raunio, ‘The Committee System: Powers, Appointments and Report Allocation’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 41 (2003), pp. 333–51.
14 R. Corbett, F. Jacobs and M. Shackleton. The European Parliament, 8th edition (London, 2011), p. 170.
15 M. Rhinard, ‘The Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union Committee System’, Governance 15, 2 (2002), pp. 185–6.
16 R. Dehousse, ‘Comitology: Who Watches the Watchmen?’ Journal of European Public Policy 10, 5 (2003), p. 800.
17 Council of the European Union decision, 28 June 1999 on procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission (1999/468/EC, OJ L 184/23 of 17 July 1999).
18 The provision is contained in Article 291 (3) TFEU, and it was developed by Regulation No 182/2011, in force since 1 March 2011.
19 Å. Gornitzka and U. Sverdrup, ‘Access of Experts: Information and EU Decision-making’, West European Politics 34 (2011), pp. 56 and 63–4.
20 P. Bernhagen, A. Dür and D. Marshall, ‘Information or Context: What Accounts for Positional Proximity between the European Commission and Lobbyists?’ Journal of European Public Policy 22 (2015), pp. 578–84.
21 G. McElroy, ‘Committee Representation in the European Parliament’, European Union Politics 7 (2006), pp. 5–29.
22 Hix and Høyland, ‘Empowerment of the European Parliament’, p. 184.
23 S. Hix, The Political System of the European Union (Basingstoke and New York, 1999), pp. 78–9.
24 R. Whitaker, ‘Party Control in a Committee-based Legislature? The Case of the European Parliament’, Journal of Legislative Studies 7 (2001), p. 65.
25 Whitaker, ‘Party Control’, p. 64, in reference to K. Krehbiel’s book Information and legislative organization (Ann Arbour, 1991).
26 T. Winzen, ‘Technical or Political? An Exploration of the Work of Officials in the Committees of the European Parliament’, The Journal of Legislative Studies 17 (2011), pp. 27–44.
27 M. Egeberg et al., ‘Parliament Staff: Unpacking the Behaviour of Officials in the European Parliament’, Journal of European Public Policy 20 (2013), p. 511.
28 European Parliament Resolution of 22 April 2009 on Gender Mainstreaming in the Work of Its Committees and Delegations (2008/2245(INI)) (adopted in 2009).
29 Guidelines for EP Interparliamentary Delegations on promoting human rights and democracy in their visits to non-EU countries (adopted in 2011, updated in 2016).
30 O. Patel, ‘The EU and the Brexit Negotiations: Institutions, Strategies and Objectives’, Brexit Insights, UCL European Institute (2018), pp. 4–5. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/europeaninstitute/sites/europeaninstitute/files/eu_and_the_brexit_negotiations.pdf.
31 R. Marcella, I. Carcary and G. Baxter, ‘The Information Needs of United Kingdom Members of the European Parliament (MEPs)’, Library Management 20 (1999), pp.13–18.
32 European Parliament, Building Parliament: 50 years of European Parliament History 1958–2008. Office for the Official Publications of the European Communities, 2009, p. 86. From its side, already in the late 1950s the European Commission was confronted to the dilemma of creating an information policy to contribute to the formation of a ‘European public spirit’ or ‘merely to disseminate news about the day-to-day activities of the institutions’, M. Dumoulin, ‘What Information Policy?’ in M. Dumoulin (ed.), The European Commission 1958–72. History and Memories (Brussels, 2007), p. 514.
33 A. Moravcsik, ‘Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union’, in J.H.H. Weiler, I. Begg and J. Peterson (eds), Integration in an Expanding European Union. Reassessing the Fundamentals (Oxford, 2003), pp. 83–4.
34 W. Wessels, ‘Reassessing the Legitimacy Debate: A Comment on Moravcsik’, in Weiler, Begg and Peterson (eds), Integration in an Expanding European Union, p. 105.
35 Moravcsik, ‘Reassessing Legitimacy’, p. 78.
36 B. Laursen and C. Valentini, ‘Mediatization and Government Communication: Press Work in the European parliament’, The International Journal of Press/Politics 20 (2015), p. 6.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Martí Grau i Segú
Martí Grau i Segú is Head of Service at the Jean Monnet House (European Parliament) in Bazoches-sur-Guyonne, France. After graduating both in History and Political Science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, he pursued postgraduate studies at the Johns Hopkins University (SAIS Bologna centre diploma), and at Pompeu Fabra University (MA in International Studies). He obtained his PhD at Pompeu Fabra Universtity with a dissertation on Historical narrative and the building of the Euro-Mediterranean area. He has taught at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and, as a Visiting Professor, at Indiana University. He has worked at the European Institute for the Mediterranean in Barcelona, and he has been a member of the House of European History team since the first steps of the project in 2011. He was also member of the committee of experts for the renovation of the Memorial d’Alsace-Lorraine in Schirmeck (France). In 2008–2009, Grau was Member of the European Parliament, working in the Internal Market and the Foreign Affairs committees, as well in the delegations for the relations for Japan, Canada, the South Caucasus countries and the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly.