ABSTRACT
Decisions concerning defence and security implications are increasingly made in an EU framework. Recent policy and institutional developments to create a common European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) have underscored this trend (see Chapter Ten). While the EU has long coordinated and implemented decisions having significant security implications, in 1999 its member states decided to develop an autonomous EU military capability to undertake 'Petersberg tasks' ranging from humanitarian intervention to peace-enforcement. The ESDP will require many aspects of national defence policy to be decided on in the relatively opaque context of intergovernmental and interinstitutional negotiation in Brussels. Within this framework national parliaments can, in principle, hold their executives accountable for decisions reached by unanimity but, in practice, it is extremely difficult for national parliamentarians to acquire the necessary oversight and expertise to judge these decisions effectively. The transfer of decision-making from the national to European level is therefore seen by many to exacerbate the problem of democratic scrutiny in an area of policy-making in which parliaments in any case enjoy relatively few formal powers.
