ABSTRACT
According to the standard thesis of deparliamentarization outlined in the introductory chapter of this volume, national parliaments have been the ‘victims’ or ‘losers’ of European integration. National governments, and not backbench parliamentarians, represent the member states at the European Union (EU) level, and hence the latter are always structurally disadvantaged vis-à-vis the executive branch. Information is the key factor in these arguments, as the national MPs can practically never have the same level of policy expertise about the issues as representatives of the government. The existing literature has thus painted a fairly bleak picture of the impact of the EU on domestic legislatures and the consequent disempowerment of parliaments.
