Role of national parliaments in the EU
Tags: European Parliament, German Constitutional Court judgment, MEPs, MPs, national parliaments
The German Constitutional Court judgment is likely to provoke parliaments in other Member States to seek ways of controlling their governments when acting in the EU Council. Were they all to choose the Danish model, the consequences for Council negotiations would be dramatic.
There is a need anyway for national parliaments to buy in to the EU process and to play a much more active role. Unfortunately, MPs have shown little interest and MEPs do not always make them welcome.
What then is the solution?
Conscientious MPS are overworked. A way needs to be found to make it directly worth their while. I was one of three rapporteurs for the myparl.eu project which began in early 2008 but was prematurely terminated by the European Parliament for internal bureaucratic reasons. The principles of this aborted project could well carry the seeds of a long term solution.
An intranet site would both enable MPs and MEPs to share information and knowledge about the European, and MPs to share information and knowledge about what they are themselves doing at the national level.
The intranet would include a forum for the exchange of ideas and debate.
Myparl.eu was multilingual, enabling participation by the MPs of all 27 Member States.
MPs would have easy access to what is happening in the European Parliament and would enable MPs to help each other, eg by obtaining information on what has been done or is being done in other national parliaments on the same subject.
From the point of view of MPs, their visibility, credibility and reputation would be increased, as well as enabling them to contribute to EU legislation…
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