ABSTRACT
To the parliaments of the EU member states, the establishment and strengthening of European decision-making institutions and mechanisms brings about, on balance, an enhanced marginalization. Of course, not all parliaments had equally much to lose in terms of legislative and scrutinizing power in the first place, and not all parliaments stood by idly as European integration progressed.1 However, European decisionmaking still allows the national governments to partake in the adoption of binding legislation away from the domestic arena, which puts national parliamentarians, provided they wish to have an impact or at least continued oversight over their governments, at a structural disadvantage.2 As various actors at both European and national level have come to realize, for various reasons, that national parliaments should be taken on board in the Constitutional Process, measures to improve the position of parliaments have been put forward. Typically, a distinction is made between addressing parliaments in their individual role on the domestic arena, on the one hand, and fostering a collective role of parliaments acting in concert, on the other hand.3
