Parliamentary scrutinity of European Union 'Pipeline acquis'

Abstract

The European Union's most important decision-making organ is the Council, in which the Members States are represented by their governments and whose meetings are held behind closed doors. This state of affairs contributes to a sense of democratic deficit mainly because of the citizen's lack of information on the bargaining that goes on in Council meetings and of influence on the position taken by their respective governments on legislative proposals whose eventual impact shall affect them directly. Furthermore, the transfer of power from national to the European level has been larger than the strengthening of supervision by National Parliaments on their respective governments. One may therefore argue that the perceived democratic deficit of the European Union decision-making process may be addressed by subjecting Government's positions on EU legislative proposals to scrutiny by Parliament. National Parliaments may therefore serve as an important link in the chain between the people and EU decisions.