National parliaments are not losers from EU integration – at least not anymore

Has European integration fundamentally weakened the powers of national parliaments? Katrin Auel, Olivier Rozenberg and Angela Tacea outline results of a comparative study of 27 national parliaments in the EU between 2010 and 2012. They note that European activities now take a prominent role in many national parliaments, albeit the much discussed ‘early warning system’ provided by the Lisbon Treaty has rarely been used. Their evidence suggests that far from becoming marginalised by European integration, several national parliaments play a greater role in EU affairs than they are given credit for.

(more…)