Working with national parliaments on EU affairs : European implementation assessment

For decades the European Treaties neither regulated nor envisaged any formal relations between national parliaments and the European Community/European Union (EU) institutions. The role of national parliaments in European affairs was therefore to a large extent overlooked. The situation began to change slowly with the adoption of the Treaty of Maastricht (1992). However, the real change in national parliaments' status is connected with the adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon (2007), which has enabled national parliaments' active involvement in EU affairs, and enhanced the dialogue between national parliaments and the EU institutions. Since the adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon, national parliaments can actively participate in scrutinising subsidiarity in draft EU legislative acts. They can engage in a political dialogue with the European Commission, and they are involved in interparliamentary cooperation with the European Parliament. Increasingly, national parliaments strive to become an active player at EU level and thus bridge the gap between EU citizens and EU affairs. Against this background, this European implementation assessment provides an analysis of publicly available material published by the European institutions with regard to the position of national parliaments within the constitutional framework of the EU.