How do national parliaments (NPs) fit into the emerging representative system at the EU-level? This question arises in light of their new powers under the Treaty of Lisbon, which authorizes them to intervene directly in the EU’s legislative process by raising subsidiarity-based concerns within the Early Warning Mechanism. Individual NPs are no longer limited to exercising oversight over their respective governments’ conduct of EU affairs; they are now EU-level actors in their own right. Moreover, NPs as a group now have collective legislative influence in that a majority of them (wielding an “orange card”) may force an early vote on an EU legislative proposal in the Council and the European Parliament. Arguably, NPs now constitute a “virtual third chamber” in that while they do not meet together in the same physical space they perform the functions of a parliamentary chamber at the EU-level – legislation, deliberation, and representation. Focusing on the last of these, this paper critically addresses the question of whether – and if so, how – NPs could fulfill a representative function not only at the national but also the EU-level.
