Executive Privilege Reaffirmed? Parliamentary Scrutiny of the CFSP and CSDP

Abstract

The EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) occupy a unique space in EU governance. Both policies have supranational elements, yet their formally intergovernmental status shields them from the increased scrutiny powers granted to national parliaments after Lisbon. National parliamentary scrutiny of these policy areas has thus received relatively little attention. Using an analytical framework of ‘authority, ability and attitude’, this paper argues that attitude, meaning MPs’ willingness to scrutinise CFSP, is the most important factor in explaining the empirical variation in the quantity and quality of national parliamentary scrutiny of CFSP. Drawing on qualitative research and interviews conducted as part of the OPAL project, the paper demonstrates that formal powers do not, in practice, equate to ‘strong’ scrutiny, arguing that the strongest parliaments are those that make CFSP scrutiny a systematic, normalised and culturally accepted part of parliamentarians’ everyday work.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Editors of this Special Issue and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback, and the entire OPAL team for their constructive criticisms of this paper. I particularly wish to thank my Cambridge colleagues Julie Smith and Geoffrey Edwards for their help, advice and comments at all stages of the paper’s development. I am also very grateful to all those who agreed to be interviewed as part of this research. The usual disclaimer applies.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interests was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This includes most CSDP missions, of which two-thirds are civilian in nature and therefore not subject to the same parliamentary approval procedures.

2. These seven case studies were selected by the OPAL project for in-depth research. The case of Slovakia was also examined closely by the OPAL project, but there was not enough data on CFSP scrutiny to include it in this study.

3. The Folketing also has a formal mandating system, but it does not apply for defence issues, or for EU defence due to the Danish opt-out. As a result the Folketing remains somewhat marginalised in terms of CSDP.

4. The Polish parliament has a ‘soft’ mandating system for EU legislation that obliges the government to adopt the same position as the European Union Committee, or else to explain its decision. This does not apply to CFSP.

5. In their study of parliamentary scrutiny of Operation Atalanta, Peters et al. (2011: 7) found that members of opposition parties often had less access to information than their counterparts in governing parties. This was echoed in interviews for OPAL.

6. See Standard Eurobarometer 80, First Results: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb80/eb80_first_en.pdf, p. 16 (accessed 22 December 2013).

7. To obtain a result reflective of the dynamic within each parliament, only parties with national parliamentary representation on 31 December 2013 were included in these calculations (thus, for example, the United Kingdom Independence Party was excluded).

8. See, for example, the PMQ session and plenary debates held on 22 November 2000 (House of Commons, Hansard vol. 357) and the Opposition Day debate of 27 October 2003 (House of Commons, Hansard vol. 412).

9. For example, a debate on EUTM Mali and EUTM Somalia took place in the European Committee – an ad hoc body to which a number of MPs are appointed to debate specific issues on the recommendation of the ESC – on 16 January 2013. The transcript is available at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmgeneral/euro/130,116/130116s01.htm.