Europeanisation of National Parliaments in European Union Member States: Experiences and Best Practices. Study for the European Parliament’s Greens/EFA Group

Over the last years, the role of national parliaments (NP) in the European Union (EU) has been ‘upgraded’ in a number of ways, most importantly through the introduction of the Early Warning System (EWS) and a new role in treaty revisions in the Treaty of Lisbon (TEU). In addition to their traditional role of scrutinising the government in EU affairs, these provisions formally turn national legislatures into EU actors in their own right that can act both individually and collectively at the EU level as well as, in most cases, formally independently of their national governments. As a result, the EU legislative process now presents them with multiple arenas they can be simultaneously active in. Against this background, this study examines how national parliaments have resorted to the different tools at their disposal within the different arenas in the practical political process.