National Parliaments and the European Policy Process

Project Lead: Katrin Auel
Duration: 2014
Funding: Centre des Etudes Européennes (CEE), Sciences Po Paris


The role of national parliaments in EU affairs has gained a lot of scholarly attention over the last years. Much of the by now broad literature, however, focuses on parliamentary scrutiny of EU matters in a rather isolated way and without connecting it to policy processes at the EU level. The project, undertaken in cooperation with Olivier Rozenberg (CEE Sciences Po Paris), therefore combines the datasets of the OPAL project (include Hyperlink to OPAL project) and the Observatoire des institutions européennes (OIE) at the CEE Paris to analyse national parliamentary scrutiny of EU affairs embedded within EU decision-making processes. Focussing on key characteristics such the timing, the level of contestation and conflict as well as the thematic emphasis of policy processes at the domestic and the European level, the main aim of the project is to investigate the impact of parliamentary scrutiny on EU decision–making.