The Parliamentary Scrutiny of EU Affairs after the Eurocrisis: Evidence from Southern Europe

In a time of growing popular distrust towards the European project, the oversight of European affairs by national parliamentary actors has attracted increasing academic and political attention as a fundamental channel connecting the European and domestic sphere. Research has been conducted on the evolution of the rules governing these parliamentary instruments and whether MPs have actually used them. Yet, we still know little about their issue emphasis and how these dynamics varied over time and across types of party. This paper analyses the content of EU-related parliamentary questions, one of the most important scrutiny tools, in four Southern European member states - Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain - over the last decade (2007-2017) using Comparative Agendas Project methodology. First, it asks whether and how the Euro crisis, which severely hit this group of countries, affected the issue content of parliamentary questions at an aggregate level. Second, it analyses whether parties making their entrance in parliament in recent years made a different use of this oversight tool with respect to old parties. Our findings provide new insights on the evolution of parliamentary scrutiny of EU affairs before, during and after the outbreak of the Euro crisis, specifically casting new light on the role of new opposition parties.