ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the question of whether the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is supporting the European Parliament (EP) in its claim for more powers in external action. This issue is related to the 'normative' debate on democracy and legitimacy in the European Union, and more precisely on the legitimacy of both EU external action and CJEU rulings. The chapter explains the study the case law of the Court of Justice dealing with the EP's external powers from 1990 onwards. It presents the historical background and, more specifically, the evolution of the EP's external powers through Treaty revisions and inter-institutional arrangements. The chapter also presents the empirics of the 11 judgments, where the CJEU has ruled on the external powers of the EP. It concludes from this study that the external powers of the EP are not an area where the Court exerts strong judicial activism since the early 1990s.
