Division of Foreign Policy Research Study Group of European Integration Working Paper No. 3 May 1997 STRENGTHEN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT The European Parliament Controls the European Union National Parliaments Control their Governments 1. National parliaments legitimise the transfer of sovereignty rights from the Member States to the EC/EU. Their role must remain limited to transferring competencies and scrutinising their govern­ments. The thesis regarding their ostensibly inadequate participation in the integration process overlooks two things: First, Member States' parliaments ratify Treaty changes and accessions; second, the parliaments are comprehensively involved in the implementation of directives. 2. The European Union must become more democratic. The European Parliament(EP) continues to be the sole directly legitimised EC institution. In the future, the EP must thus participate as a legislator in EC lawmaking on equal footing with the Council of Ministers. To this end, the election procedures must be standardised and a greater representativeness must be achieved. 3. The Maastricht Treaty exacerbates the parliamentary democratic deficit: The Common Foreign and Security Policy(CFSP) and the Co-operation in Justice and Home Affairs(CJHA) are subject neither to uniform national nor direct European parliamentary control. 4. To remove this parliamentary democratic deficit, the legislative powers of the EP must be strengthened through increased use of the co-decision procedure and enhancement of the national parliaments' powers of scrutiny vis-a-vis their governments. Flexible integration requires parliamentary participation. 5. Methods of flexible integration allow a certain number of Member States to proceed ahead of the EU in its entirety in a few areas. In the future, when a decision is taken in an area where flexibility is already written into the Treaty, then the EP must receive a right to co-decision and the national parliaments a right of final ratification. 6. New parliamentary chambers consisting of deputies from those states participating in the flexibility core will only lead to a duplication of vested interests and to conflicts of interest within the Council of Ministers or between the Council of Ministers and the EP. Thus, they should be rejected. (please turn over) Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Research Institute, Department of Foreign Policy Research 53170 Bonn, Tel.:(..49-228)883-211 and-230, Fax: 883-625