(Page 1 of 25) - National Parliaments in the European Union: The Benefits of Integration authored by Oliver, Michael. and Duina, Francesco.

National Parliaments in the European Union: Are

There Any Benefits to Integration?

Paper presented at APSA 2004 (Chicago, IL)

European Politics and Society Division

Francesco Duina and Michael J. Oliver

Abstract: Scholars and observers alike agree that the European Union (EU) has
weakened national parliaments (NP). We posit that such a view, while generally
accurate, ignores ways in which the EU has helped NP in their function as regulators of
society. We identify two key mechanisms: precedent setting and policy transfer. First, the
EU has produced laws on topics considered beyond the traditional remit of NP. The EU’s
intervention has justified the production of unprecedented domestic laws that go well
beyond the incorporation of EU principles. This has expanded the legislative reach of
NP. We consider the experiences of Italy and the Netherlands in the area of antitrust.
Second, the EU has fostered an environment conducive to cross-national lesson drawing.
The resulting knowledge has helped the design of more effective domestic legislative
frameworks. This has confirmed the viability of NP as regulatory institutions. We
examine the Open Method of Coordination and its application to the areas of
employment and social inclusion. We conclude with a discussion of parliaments in future
member states and in Mercosur.

Introduction

The consensus among scholars and observers alike is that the European Union (EU) has
weakened national parliaments (NP). Numerous scholars have noted that NP must accept
EU law, which is mandatory and superior to national law, without having participated in
its formulation. They have thus described a process of decommissioning of NP, or of
‘deparliamentarization’ of the member states (Schmidt, 1999). Other scholars, somewhat
critical of this interpretation, have noted that amendments to EU treaties and a series of
domestic initiatives have recently helped NP increase their control over the production of
EU law (Raunio, 1999; Raunio and Hix, 2000). Yet, in arguing that NP have gained back
some lost power, these critics have also subscribed to a negative evaluation of the impact
of the EU on NP.

In this article, we propose that the current consensus on the EU’s impact on NP,

though generally correct, ignores ways in which the EU may have in fact helped NP
function as regulators of society. We identify two distinct venues through which this may
have happened: precedent setting and policy transfer. In the case of precedent setting, we

Department of Sociology and Department of Economics, Bates College, Lewiston, ME 04240 (USA).

Direct all correspondence to ## email not listed ##. An early version of this article was presented at the 14

International Conference of Europeanists in Chicago, March 2004.