This article offers the first ever comparative analysis of the involvement of V4 parliaments in the sphere of European Union (EU) affairs. Its underlying research objective is to determine what conditions V4’s parliamentary participation in various EU-oriented activities such as domestic scrutiny of the government’s EU policy, the political dialogue with the Commission, the Early Warning System for subsidiarity control, and the green card initiative. Based on the actual scrutiny output, parliamentary minutes, and data from questionnaires, we address the questions: (1) To what extent domestic legislatures act as autonomous as opposed to government-supporting actors in these arenas? (2) Do they mostly act as EU veto players, or try to contribute constructively to the EU policy-making process by bringing alternative policy ideas? (3) What are their motivations for engaging in direct dialogue with EU institutions in addition to domestic scrutiny? and (4) How MPs envisage their own EU-oriented roles? While the article reveals that V4 parliaments mostly act as gatekeepers in the sphere of EU affairs, it also casts a new light on the previous literature findings related to the EU-oriented performance of the Czech and Polish lower chambers. We conclude that, generally, V4 parliaments refrain from fully exploiting their relatively strong formal prerogatives in EU affairs—a fact that can be partly explained by the composition of their ruling majorities.

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Příspěvek analyzuje novou unijní právní úpravu evropských politických stran a její genezi. Původně navrhovaný velmi restriktivní režim s pochybnými prostředky právní ochrany byl přiblížen evropským standardům svobody politického sdružování až v průběhu legislativního procesu. Přestože evropské politické strany nejsou svou povahou zcela srovnatelné s vnitrostátními, z hlediska vývoje evropské integrace nelze jejich potenciál podceňovat. Proto jejich právní úpravu nelze vyjímat z požadavků kladených na regulaci politických stran ve státech Rady Evropy. Geneze nařízení pak vybízí i k úvahám o významu politické odpovědnosti a veřejné kontroly pro ochranu politické svobody.

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The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU as a yardstick for national legislation? The article discusses the possibilities and modes of utilizing the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU as a human rights yardstick against which national legislation may be measured, especially in the Czech Republic. It considers the formal and material features of the Charter and comes to a conclusion that because of the close link between the Charter and the rest of EU law, the assessment whether national legislation complies with the Charter is best made as a part of the assessment of the legislation's compatibility with EU law in general. Used separately as a source of human rights, the Charter has little new to offer in comparison with the national and international sources.