What Happens in Parliament Stays in Parliament? Newspaper Coverage of National Parliaments in EU Affairs

Abstract

The role of national parliaments in EU matters has become an important subject in the debate over the democratic legitimacy of the European Union. Yet despite a remarkable increase in parliamentary involvement in EU affairs, the added value in terms of democratic legitimacy will remain limited if citizens are not aware of their activities. Given that citizens mainly experience politics through the media, the aim of the paper is therefore to explore whether and under what conditions parliamentary involvement in EU matters is visible in national newspapers. The paper draws on two quantitative datasets covering parliamentary EU activities and relevant newspaper articles in seven Member States between 2010 and 2013. Results suggest that the efforts of active parliaments pay off. In addition, conflict within government coalitions over EU issues and greater salience of EU politics in public opinion increase coverage while, surprisingly, both public and parliamentary euroscepticism do not.

Complementing, competing, or co-operating? Exploring newspapers’ portrayals of the European Parliament and national parliaments in EU affairs

“…In NP coverage an overwhelming majority of cases (around 75%) dealt with financial topics. Similar results for a period of four years (2010–2013) have been found in other studies, too (see Auel, Eisele, and Kinski 2015). For EP coverage, in turn, the percentage was much lower, at 28%.…”

“…Independent variables comprise debates, (written and oral) questions and press releases as the most important public activities of parliamentarians and parliaments in terms of their amount and regarding their potential to make parliamentary work visible (see Auel, Eisele, and Kinski 2015 for a similar design). These activities, it is argued, serve the purpose to act as a proxy for parliaments’ efforts to become visible in public and make EU politics transparent for citizens.…”

“…For this reason, legislative and media activities are tested in separate models. Data on EP activities was retrieved from the EP’s online archives whereas data on parliamentary activities of NPs in EU affairs was collected in the context of the PACE project and the OPAL project 4 (Auel, Eisele, and Kinski 2015, 2016; Auel, Rozenberg, and Tacea 2015b). Press releases comprise only those issued by the institution of parliament, not individual party groups or M(E)Ps.…”

“…There is an abundance of studies focusing on the EU in general taking EP elections as the period of investigation (instead of many: Boomgaarden et al 2013) or on national elections, NPs or national politics more generally (for an overview see Vos 2015). However, the EP in the media has rarely been discussed (but see Gattermann 2011, 2013; Gattermann and Vasilopoulou 2015); the same is true for news about NPs in EU affairs (but see Auel, Eisele, and Kinski 2015). Notwithstanding their decreased general newsworthiness, however, parliaments are still relevant and powerful institutions that take legally-binding decisions: ‘Because their actions directly affect many citizens, state actors actually benefit from an “inherent” news value and get more access to the media’ (Tresch 2009, 71).…”

“…Accordingly, empirical studies focussing on the mirroring of individual political actors’ activities in the news and parliamentary activities as such (Auel, Eisele, and Kinski 2015; Van Santen, Helfer, and van Aelst 2015) have found a positive influence of greater public visibility on coverage. Some studies have also suggested a more ambiguous influence (e.g.…”