ABSTRACT
The 1983 United European Left study found that members saw contributing to policymaking at the European level and the advancement of European integration as their two main commitments, followed by looking after constituency interests, overseeing European executive bodies, and promoting national interests. Since national interests were argued to be already safeguarded in the meetings of the Council, it was regarded important that the parliamentary assembly would offer a ‘European’ perspective to policymaking. Parliamentary questions have attracted surprisingly little attention from scholars interested in legislatures. While often mentioned in studies on various parliaments, works focusing solely on the device of parliamentary questions have been few and far between. The benefit of the written question is that it is a multi-functional instrument, with two of its main functions being control of the executive and sending and acquiring information. Included in the sample were members making active use of written questions, as well as those submitting few if any parliamentary questions.
