Is parliamentary attention to the EU strongest when it is needed the most? National parliaments and the selective debate of EU policies

Abstract

When do parliaments debate European Union policies? Normative arguments suggest that debates enhance government accountability. Others warn of government bias, declining debate near elections, and parties avoiding Eurosceptic publics. Our conclusions are more differentiated. We argue that rank-and-file parliamentarians rather than leaders initiate debates. Political incentives guide their debate selection towards salient policies in the countries in which voters care most. However, where the motivation Eurosceptic publics provide and institutions facilitating rank-and-file agenda-setting are lacking, EU law-making and European Council priorities will raise little parliamentary attention. Analysis of original data, using a Bayesian and multilevel framework, lends credibility to our views. Claims of a government bias, election effects, or trends towards more debate are unlikely to hold in all countries.

Signals to Their Parliaments? Governments’ Use of Votes and Policy Statements in the EU Council

“…When a national parliament has extensive competences to scrutinize and amend government policies, governments are more likely to oppose the majority in the EU Council and record their positions in formal policy statements following the adoption of an act. This links previous findings on the reasons for EU debates in national parliaments (Rauh and De Wilde, ; Winzen et al, ) to the EU negotiation table and demonstrates that governments act to preempt potential criticisms from their powerful legislatures of the legislature. Government behaviour in the EU Council is also conditioned by the degree of political fragmentation in their parliaments, and to some degree by the proximity to national elections.…”

“…As national parliaments are the central national stakeholder, we expect governments to position themselves in votes and formal policy statements in the EU Council in order to direct such signals to their parliaments. We suggest that this has an increasing effect, such that the signalling will be particularly pronounced when governments know that their recorded positions are picked up on at home: national parliaments with extensive powers of scrutiny are more actively engaged in policy oversight of their government's actions in EU affairs than those that have fewer powers (Rauh and De Wilde, ; Winzen et al, ). Increased oversight and control mechanisms in national parliaments should therefore motivate governments to signal to these domestic actors more often.…”

“…In fact, a growing body of literature on parliamentary oversight in the EU (Auel and Höing, ; Winzen, ) has shown that the institutional power of national parliaments has increased in recent decades and varies between countries (Winzen, ). Moreover, stronger institutional power to monitor the activities of government motivates more debate in the national plenary (Winzen et al, ) as a reaction to increasing Europeanization, and when opposition parties see a chance to criticize the government, such as during EU summits (Rauh and De Wilde, ). Both the institutional capacity for monitoring, as well as the political situation inside parliament, are thus factors that we can assume influence governments’ strategies and policy positions at the EU.…”

“…If government representatives know that domestic actors, including their national parliaments, are able to scrutinize their actions, they will take into account the way these records are perceived not only by their European negotiation partners, but also in the domestic political sphere. Previous studies have established that the institutional capacity of parliaments to monitor their government in EU negotiations is a precondition for taking up the debate about the EU (Rauh and De Wilde, ; Winzen et al, ). Our analysis in turn demonstrates how this capacity affects government negotiation behaviour at the EU level.…”

“…EU governments have seen a reaction from national parliaments to the increasing Europeanization and politicization of EU affairs, and a large number of parliaments have stepped up their efforts to oversee their executives at the EU level (Rauh and De Wilde, ; Winzen, ). This happens both through parliamentary debates and in committee scrutiny of EU policies (Rauh and De Wilde, ; Winzen et al, ). Therefore, it is clear that members of the legislature now have an incentive to challenge their governments, based on their political standpoint on EU matters, and are able to do so.…”