The persistent dilemma of supranational representation. Framing the weakness of the European Parliament’s representative function in light of the rise of Euroscepticism

ABSTRACT

The different crises affecting the EU since 2008 have triggered the politicization of European integration. In this regard, it is of primary importance to understand how the EU representation model works, and what have been the major shortcomings of this function at the supranational level. The article will focus on the role and functioning of the European Parliament (EP), which in this moment in history should arguably be at the centre of the political debate over the EU and its governance. Instead, the EP’s representative function has proven to be rather weak also in this mutating context. Using the theoretical insights of the representative claim theory declined according to the peculiarity of the multilevel governance system, the present article offers a theoretical framework with which to interpret the weaknesses and the dilemma of supranational representation and the role of the EP in this fragile context. Furthermore, the article will suggest that the rise of Euroscepticism can be seen as an unavoidable outcome of the shortcomings of the EU’s representative system.

KEYWORDS:

• Representation
• European integration
• European Parliament
• politicization
• Euroscepticism

Disclosure statement

The author has no conflict of interests

Notes

1. Anyway it is worth to underline that majority coalitions in the EP tend to be policy specific, with a continuous shifting from centre left to centre right that is peculiar of the EP (Hix and Høyland 2013) and can be explained by the absence of a stabilized relationship with the executive power.

2. The trilogue is a meeting used in the EU for the legislative process. This arena was originally conceived as a means to set an agreement between representatives from Parliament and Council in case of legislative conflict, while now it is surged as an early stage in the process of the co-decision procedure (Ripoll Servent and Panning 2019).

3. Again, if we consider the division of labour in committees, this cannot be primarily accounted for by electoral incentives and electoral representation needs, but by other motives such as policy-oriented concerns, parties as gatekeepers, or different career paths and individual backgrounds (Mamadouh and Raunio 2003; Yordanova 2011).

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Funding

This work has not received any grants