ABSTRACT
The academic literature on the European Union (EU) has discussed extensively its role as a ‘normative power’, especially since the integration of the objective of the promotion of human rights, and in general of the political conditionality, in its external action since the 1990s. The European Parliament (EP) has been instrumental in driving this dimension mainly through its Foreign Affairs Committee and the Subcommittee on Human Rights. To this end, the Parliament has a wide range of instruments of a co-optive, shaming or punitive nature. The chapter reviews the implementation of the objective of promoting human rights in order to assess the extent to which Parliament may be regarded as the institution that expresses the ‘normative voice’ of the EU. It also asks what role such a ‘voice’ can play in order to strengthen the authority and legitimacy of the Parliament in a context of limited powers.
