ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the issue with role of the European Parliament (EP) and national parliaments in the European Union (EU) multilevel system. The EP and national parliaments are representative institutions in the EU's multilevel system, act in a shared decision-making environment, confront overlapping electorates and contain members from the same political parties. The national parliaments have to ratify the constitutional changes giving powers to the EP. The co-operation procedure adopts in the Single European Act (SEA) provides the EP with limited agenda-setting powers, the co-decision procedure introduced at Maastricht, and its subsequent reform at Amsterdam, further extends the EP's formal influence over EU legislation, while reducing the influence of the Commission. The Commission also entertains a "political dialogue" inviting parliaments to submit observations on policy initiatives. The Lisbon Treaty declared the co-decision procedure to be the "Ordinary Legislative Procedure" (OLP), and the main legislative procedure for the adoption of EU legislation.
