Regional parliamentary empowerment in EU affairs. Building an analytical framework

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the effects of the Lisbon Treaty provisions for regional parliaments in EU decentralised systems by looking at the early warning system (EWS) for subsidiarity control. It argues that the implications of this mechanism for parliamentary empowerment at the regional level should be assessed carefully and their links with political mobilisation, institutional restructuring and policy involvement in a particular context should be analysed as precisely as possible. For this reason, this article proposes a conceptual and analytical framework that allows the detection of several kinds of regional empowerment under the EWS and explains their transformative effects in different national contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Regional parliaments
• subsidiarity
• early warning system
• parliamentary empowerment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Karolina Borońska-Hryniewiecka (PhD in political science) is the Head of the EU Programme at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) and an assistant professor at the Institute of Political Science of the University of Wrocław. Her research focuses on EU institutional reform, multilevel governance and the role of parliaments in the EU. She has worked as: a lecturer at the Department of European Studies of Masaryk University; Jean Monnet Post-doctoral Fellow at the EUI in Florence; and a researcher at the Subsidiarity Monitoring Network of the Committee of the Regions in Brussels. Her recent publications include: Differential Europeanization? The Impact of the Early Warning System on Regional Parliaments across Europe (EPSR); A New Player in the Multi-level Inter-parliamentary Field. Cooperation and Communication of Regional Parliaments in the Post-Lisbon Scenario (Hart Publishing); and From the Early Warning System to a ‘Green Card’ for National Parliaments: Hindering or Accelerating EU Lawmaking? (Oxford University Press). Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 In Germany: Berlin, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Bremen, Hessen, Saxony, Lower Saxony and Nordrhein-Westfalen; in Spain: Basque Country, Catalonia, Extremadura, Canary Islands, Galicia, Aragón, Murcia, Andalusia and Cantabria; in the UK: Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The data refers to the EWS experience in the time period 2011–12.

2 Their Landtage admit sending their reasoned opinion or opinions within the framework of the so-called political dialogue directly to the European Commission.

3 Interview: Basque Parliament.

4 Based on questionnaires received from the Basque, Catalan and Canary Island parliaments.

5 The work of the Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended between 2002 and 2007 due to political unrest.

6 Devolved assemblies hold the executive to account for its actions in the European field, as ministers might be called to provide evidence to EU parliamentary committees on their work.

7 http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/globalassets/documents/corporate/report-of-the-european-project-manager.pdf.