Taking it to the Next Level? EU-Oriented Capacity, Performance and Ambitions of V4 Parliaments.

In a joint proposal for an EU institutional reform proposed for the Bratislava summit in 2016, the Visegrad Group (V4) called for strengthening national parliaments by equipping them with a “red card” to veto EU legislative proposals. While the postulate did not materiailze in the so-called Bratislava roadmap, it remained on the political agenda of V4 governments. The latter ones have been vocal advocates of strengthening the powers of national parliaments in the EU as a remedy for its alleged democratic deficit. But are V4 parliaments in fact ready for this institutional upgrade? Executive ambitions aside, the EU-oriented activity of V4 legislatures including their legal-constitutional standing, institutional capacities and actual performance remains under-researched. Against this backdrop, this paper offers a comparative analysis of the recent practice of EU affairs scrutiny in the V4 parliaments trying to probe for systemic similarities and differences. It accounts for the domestic scrutiny of the government's positions as well as for various forms of direct involvement of national parliaments with EU institutions (political dialogue, subsidiarity check, green card, the idea of a red card). The paper detects what conditions parliamentary activity in these particular arenas and to what extent domestic legislatures act autonomously within them. Based on the actual scrutiny output (resolutions) as well as MPs’ perception of EU-oriented roles as captured in replies to questionnaires and minutes from sessions, we try to answer the following questions: What is more important to Visegrád Group parliaments: domestic scrutiny or direct dialogue with EU institutions? Do they mostly act as veto-players or try to contribute constructively to the EU policy-making process? How do MPs envisage their own-EU related roles ?