ABSTRACT
In the past, debates on the role of national parliaments (NPs) in the European
Union have mainly focused on questions of how they can participate in Euro-
pean policy-making, whether we observe a decline of parliaments in EU
multi-level governance or whether the challenge of European integration
has triggered a revival of parliaments in political systems. In the mid-1990s,
Philip Norton pointed out the increasing activities of national parliaments to
cope with the two-level politics in the EU and thus criticised the hypothesis
of a creeping ‘de-parliamentarisation’.1 Others have discussed whether parlia-
ments are in effect losers or merely latecomers in the emerging political
system of the EU.2 Comparative studies have shown that there is no general
answer to these questions given the wide variety of parliaments and parlia-
mentary systems in the Member States.3 With the recent enlargement of the
EU, this variety has increased since the accession countries are still emerging
democracies and are confronted by the dual challenge of Europeanisation and
constitutional transformation.
