The challenges of territorial representation at the supranational level: The case of French MEPs

Abstract

Even though the territorial dimension of the European representative mandate may be a key element for European Union's legitimization, it remains overlooked in academic literature. This article explores this statement by analysing the EP's French delegation, which includes several interesting features with regard to territorial representation. The article is structured around three research questions: how do French Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) deal with the territorial dimension of their mandate? Why are there some variations regarding focus of representation? To what extent does their focus of representation affect their role orientation? Relying on the results of 37 interviews with French MEPs using both closed and open-ended questions, we demonstrate that the MEPs develop a composite view of representation and display some variations in terms of focus of representation. Those variations are explained mostly through the actor's political orientations and socio-biographic characteristics. We also understand that the focus of representation has some effect on how French MEPs conceive their mandate.

Sovereignty Conflicts in the European Union

“…At European level, the key role of nonmajoritarian institutions, mainly the European Commission and the European Central Bank, also contributes to maintain EU politics insulated from electoral cycles and parliamentary politics. For a number of reasons, mainly pertaining the quality of representation at EU level (Farell andScully 2007, Brack andCosta 2013), the EP, in spite of the continuous strengthening of its powers, has by no means compensated for the loss of power of national parliaments. And the structuring of a genuine, effectively functioning multi-level parliamentary system associating national parliaments and the EP has remained elusive until today.…”

Unpacking old and new conflicts of sovereignty in the European polity

“…At European level, the key role of non-majoritarian institutions, mainly the European Commission and the European Central Bank, also contributes to maintain EU politics insulated from electoral cycles and parliamentary politics. For a number of reasons, mainly pertaining the quality of representation at EU level (Farrell and Scully 2007;Brack and Costa 2013), the EP, in spite of the continuous strengthening of its powers, has by no means compensated for the loss of power of national parliaments. And the structuring of a genuine, effectively functioning multi-level parliamentary system associating national parliaments and the EP has remained elusive until today.…”