This paper analyzes the role of local party branches in the making of European policy and selection of candidates for the European Parliamentary elections. It uses a principal agent framework to investigate to what extent power has been delegated from the grassroots level to higher levels of the party organization. The cases examined are the Labour Party, the French Socialist Party (PS), and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). The key finding is that EU policy-making power has largely been delegated from the party at the grassroots level to the party in public and central office. The grassroots parties are however slowly waking up and becoming more involved in EU debates.
