Who Cares About the EU? French MPs and the Europeanisation of Parliamentary Questions

Abstract

International audienceThis study is based on the idea that the effective involvement of national parliamentarians in European Union (EU) affairs is as important for the capacity of national parliaments to adapt to the consequences of European integration as the elaboration of new institutional mechanisms. It therefore investigates the attention given to Europe in parliamentary questions as an indicator of the Europeanisation of the French National Assembly. Have French MPs developed a greater degree of attention to Europe in their ordinary work? What are the factors behind individual variations in MPs' attention to Europe? The empirical analysis of more than 334,000 questions from 1988 to 2007 shows the limited Europeanisation of French MPs' work, revealing that the type of questions (oral, written, to the government) is the most significant factor explaining the level of attention given to Europ

Who Europeanises parliamentary attention, on which issues and how? A policy agenda perspective

“…Similarly, it has been argued that MPs from opposition parties are more prone to Europeanize the parliamentary agenda, as part of their strategy to demarcate themselves from government parties (Navarro andBrouard 2014, Raunio andHix 2000). At a first glance, the distinction between government and opposition does not make much sense in the Swiss consensus democracy, since all major political parties are represented in government.…”

“…For instance, Navarro and Brouard (2014) show that the Europeanization of parliamentary attention is rather limited in France. In addition, they demonstrate that MPs from both opposition and government parties ask questions to the government to scrutinize the minister in charge of EU policy proposals.…”

“…More recent studies draw our attention to the behavioral and attitudinal dimensions of Europeanization and invite us to take a closer look at what political parties and national MPs really do and how they behave (e.g. Auel 2006, Auel and Benz 2005, Auel and Raunio 2014, Benz 2004, Pollak and Slominski 2003, Navarro and Brouard 2014, Palau 2012, Raunio 2009. We join this second stream of research by looking at the Europeanization of parliamentary activities in Switzerland.…”

“…These parties rather tend to focus on a « monitoring scrutiny » (Auel 2007), which consists in asking the Executive to inform, to clarify and to explain its policy strategy. This less intrusive scrutiny may seek to avoid a ministerial drift in EU matters (Navarro andBrouard 2014, Finke andHerbel 2015), to strengthen the bargaining position of the government at the EU level and to protect the government from Eurosceptic parties (Holzhacker 2002: 467). Consequently, the tone of parliamentary interventions introduced by non-Eurosceptic, governmental parties should be neutral or even positive towards the EU.…”

Strategic communication of EU affairs: an analysis of legislative behaviour on Twitter

“…Likewise, De Ruiter (2014) finds that opposition parties in the UK or the Netherlands are not making use of the reports from open methods of coordination -a rich source of critical information on the performance of governments in EU affairs -to hold the government publicly to account. Besides, studying the parliamentary questions asked in the French Assemblée Nationale, Navarro and Brouard (2014) report that the overall proportion of EU-related questions directed at the French government was in decline at least until 2007. However, those who study a more recent time period show that parliamentary communication of EU affairs has been increasing over time (Rauh, 2015) and particularly as a result of the eurozone crisis (Auel & Höing, 2015;Puntscher Riekmann & Wydra, 2013;Wendler, 2014).…”