Possibilities for Upgrading Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation after the 2014 European Elections

The Status Quo of Inter-parliamentary CooperationAt inter-parliamentary conferences, members of national parliaments (MPs) and Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) meet in an organised and recurrent setting to discuss topics of common interest. The functions of these conferences are to examine decisions taken at the EU level, attempt to counter-balance the decline of national parliamentary sovereignty over EU matters, constitute an institutional expression of political support and opposition, and socialise MPs in order to Europeanise the control exercised at national level and within highly national frameworks.Today, there are various inter-parliamentary settings. Most are organised by the European Parliament and its Directorate for Relations with National Parliaments. This may occur jointly with the parliament of the country holding the European Council presidency. In the case of the Speakers' Conference1 and the meetings between the chairs of committees, however, it is the national parliament of the Member State currently holding the rotating presidency of the Council which is the sole organiser.2As inter-parliamentary cooperation has gained in prominence, however, it has fallen into stalemate-most recently because of disagreements over the institutional design of an inter-parliamentary conference to discuss budgetary policies and other issues covered by the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance (TSCG), or Fiscal Compact.3 On 1 January 2013 the TSCG came into force, but diverging preferences among national parliaments and opposition from the European Parliament around the internal organisation of the conference have hampered the smooth implementation of the treaty's provisions.4Such divergences between MPs and MEPs are not new. Disagreements typically oscillate around general questions of legitimacy, basic issues such as the formal weight to be given to the two parliamentary levels, and around the competences and objectives of such a conference. For instance, it was reported that, during discussions on the Inter-parliamentary conference for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), set up in 2012, European Parliament initially claimed 54 out of 162 seats.5 And yet, the development of the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the EU (COSAC) suggests that parliaments will not always make use of their participation rights.An analysis of participation rates at the last seven COSAC meetings, from 2009 to 2013, shows a considerable variation across EU Member States.6 These national variations illustrate the-at best-ambiguous interest of national parliamentarians in EU matters. Today, then, it is hardly controversial to note that relations between national parliaments "will not develop into a balanced multilateral interplay including parliaments from all member states on the same footing. "7 The number of MPs participating in the Interparliamentary conference on Economic and Financial Governance, that took place on 16 and 17 October 2013, also varied greatly, particularly when the earlier Speakers' Conference had explicitly stated that "the composition and size of each delegation rests upon each Parliament. "8Three small Member States (Bulgaria, Luxembourg9 and Slovakia) did not send a single MP to the October TSCG Conference, whereas Lithuania had a large delegation (it was holding the rotating presidency). The German delegation was composed of 11 members of the Bundestag and Bundesrat (coalition negotiations were still ongoing at the time, and the Bundestag had yet to be constituted). France, Poland and Portugal were represented by six MPs each, and Italy sent five.10In short, the stalemate and the developments around the establishment of the TSCG conference again show the European Parliament's reluctance towards such inter-parliamentary conferences, and the repeated failure of national parliaments to be collective players at the EU level. …