Regional Parliaments in the EU Multilevel Parliamentary System

In 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon introduced new scrutiny powers for national and regional parliaments in the form of the Early Warning System (EWS). These new opportunities have functioned as a wake-up call, as many regional parliaments have used them to reform their EU affairs procedures and have started to issue opinions on EU legislative proposals. However, there is also substantial group of regional parliaments that has not made use of their new powers.

The aim of this paper is to discuss how regional parliaments fit into the democratic organization of the multilevel polity of the EU. It seeks to further our understanding of the different levels of activity of different regional parliaments. For this purpose the first part studies the opportunities available to regional parliaments for EU affairs scrutiny at different levels (i.e. control of their own government, control of the European institutions etc.). It will present an overview of how regional parliaments can be involved in EU politics, discussing the various dimensions of legislative - executive relations, both formal and informal. It will make a distinction between within-level scrutiny (regional parliament - regional government) and multilevel scrutiny (across the regional, national and European level). In this context, the paper also discusses the specific challenges faced by regional parliaments with an interest in EU affairs, such as the difficulty of controlling the Council of Ministers.