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Understanding Parliamentary Control of Intergovernmental Relations in EU affairs: The case of Bavaria

Democracy
European Union
Executives
Federalism
Parliaments
Anna-Lena Högenauer
University of Luxembourg
Anna-Lena Högenauer
University of Luxembourg

Abstract

Since the early 2000s, interest in the role of parliaments in European policy-making has sharply increased. The need to adapt to their new powers under Lisbon has led to a new wave of Europeanization (Hefftler et al. 2015). However, the Early Warning System (EWS) and the Political Dialogue with the Commission only constitute one small part of parliamentary scrutiny, which still largely relies on traditional tools such as mandates, debates and questions, i.e. tools to control the actions of the government in EU affairs. This is particularly true for regional parliaments, whose powers under the EWS are limited. The aim of this paper is to return to these traditional mechanisms in order to understand their functions and effectiveness more fully. This paper thus presents a study of the Bavarian parliament. It focuses on the extent to which the parliament uses different traditional mechanisms to control the government and its activity in intergovernmental relations and on the characteristics of the MPs who engage in this control.