How to Measure the Europeanisation of a National Legislature?

Transcription

1 ISSN Doi: /j x 2009 The Author(s) How to Measure the Europeanisation of a National Legislature? Tapio Raunio* and Matti Wiberg While there is no shortage of research on national parliaments and European integration, empirical studies on the impact of EU on domestic legislatures are lacking. This article contributes to the literature by discussing the challenges involved in measuring the Europeanisation of national parliaments and through suggesting several hypotheses and indicators EU-related national laws, the use of control instruments (confidence votes and parliamentary questions) in EU matters, and the share of committee, plenary and party group meeting time spent on European matters that can be used in subsequent comparative research. Evidence from Finland shows the differentiated impact of Europe: while the share of domestic laws related to EU is smaller than often argued, particularly committees are burdened to a much larger extent by European matters. Introduction The impact of European integration on national parliaments first received serious political and academic attention in the mid-1990s in connection with debates on how to cure the alleged democratic deficit of the European Union (EU). Both members of parliament (MPs) and scholars became more interested in whether and how national parliaments controlled their governments in European matters, particularly as in a broader range of policy domains domestic laws were being replaced by supranational EU laws. The first years of the new millennium have seen the completion of several research projects on the role of national parliaments in European integration (e.g., Maurer & Wessels 2001; Auel & Benz 2005b; Holzhacker & Albæk 2007; O Brennan & Raunio 2007; Tans et al. 2007; Barrett 2008). This scholarship has significantly improved our understanding of influence of national legislatures in the EU s political system. Despite this proliferation of research, we lack empirical studies on the extent to which national parliaments have in fact been Europeanised that is, how much and in what ways the EU has impacted national parliaments. 1 Most of the existing literature has focused on institutional adaptation by * Tapio Raunio, Department of Political Science & International Relations, University of Tampere, Finland. tapio.raunio@uta.fi 74 Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1, 2010

2 domestic legislatures, describing the various scrutiny arrangements and assessing their effectiveness. Importantly, studies on the Europeanisation of national parliaments must extend beyond European Affairs Committees (EAC). Through almost exclusively focusing on these EU committees, previous research has largely neglected other parliamentary organs such as committees, party groups and plenaries. Existing publications have at most mentioned whether specialised committees or the plenary are formally involved in the handling of EU issues. Hence this article is the first publication to cover all main aspects of parliamentary work. Furthermore, we lack agreement on how to measure or operationalise the Europeanisation of national parliaments. As a result, this case study on the Finnish Eduskunta contributes to the literature through suggesting a set of indicators and hypotheses that can be used in future comparative research. Our main research question is how and to what extent does the EU impact on the work of the Eduskunta? The central argument is that the effect of the EU on national parliaments is multifaceted, depending primarily on which parliamentary body (committees, party groups, plenary) we examine and on the incentives of political parties. In the next section we discuss the theoretical and methodological challenges involved in measuring the effect of the EU on national parliaments. Having arrived at a set of indicators, we put forward several hypotheses that are tested in the empirical section. The period under analysis covers mainly Finland s EU membership from 1995 to The dataset consists of parliamentary records, interviews and surveys of both MPs and parliamentary civil servants. 2 In the final section we summarise our results and discuss possible variation between individual domestic legislatures. The Multifaceted Impact of Europe Any study of how European integration impacts on domestic institutions must start with a definition of Europeanisation. After all, the selection of empirical indicators should be driven by the choice of the theoretical concept. In this article we are primarily interested in the top-down dimension of Europeanisation and do not focus on the issue of whether national parliaments either indirectly via their government or through direct contacts with EU institutions can influence European-level policy making. Hence we stick to the original definition by Ladrech (1994, 69), according to which Europeanisation is an incremental process re-orienting the direction and shape of politics to the degree that [EU] political and economic dynamics become part of the organizational logic of national politics and policymaking. 3 This definition is useful as it contains the fundamental question we are interested in the extent to which national parliaments have re-oriented their activities on account of European integration. Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1,

3 Another option would be to employ a more demanding definition. For example, according to an often-utilised definition, Europeanisation is processes of (a) construction, (b) diffusion, and (c) institutionalisation of formal and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles, ways of doing things, and shared beliefs and norms which are first defined and consolidated in the making of EU public policy and politics and then incorporated in the logic of domestic discourse, identities, political structures, and public policies (Radaelli 2003, 30). Radaelli s definition thus shares many elements with the original definition by Ladrech, but also goes deeper by emphasising more explicitly cultural, attitudinal or informal aspects of domestic politics. Using this definition, one could examine whether engagement in the EU s policy process alters the political cultures or working patterns of domestic legislatures. For example, to what extent has there occurred homogenisation or convergence of working patterns of domestic legislatures? And does such potential convergence vary between the different parliamentary arenas plenary, committees, party groups and between different policy sectors? However, while such questions would undeniably be highly interesting for future research, utilising such an all-encompassing definition of Europeanisation might be very demanding in terms of both data and the reliability of findings. While there are excellent case studies on how Europe affects the role conceptions or attitudes of MPs (Rozenberg 2005), it would be methodologically challenging, if not outright impossible, to execute reliable comparative studies on the cultural or informal influence of Europe. Longitudinal survey data does make it possible to identify any potential EU-induced changes (Wessels 2005), but one can also argue that such survey data is too narrow for analysing the multiple ways in which European integration can affect the mindsets of national parliamentarians. Whatever the theoretical concept employed, any realistic study on the Europeanisation of national parliaments must pay sufficient attention to the incentives of political parties. After all, European parliamentary democracy is effectively party democracy. Government formation is based on bargaining between political parties, with the opposition parties trying to unseat the cabinet or increase their support in the run-up to the next election. Parties are also responsible for setting the parliamentary rules of procedure: the agenda and powers of committees and the plenary, as well as the rights of individual members and party groups, are all decided by political parties. Considering these factors, it is essential to understand the incentives of political parties when analysing how European matters are processed in national legislatures. Having settled on our theoretical concept, we shall now discuss and explain our choice of empirical indicators. It is essential to underline that the choice of indicators is primarily determined by the requirements of 76 Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1, 2010

4 comparative research, with the main criterion being that the indicators must be applicable across the national parliaments of EU Member States. They also reflect the fact that we are interested in the top-down dimension of Europeanisation and in how the EU impacts on the work of the parliaments, not on the public policies approved by the legislatures. Share of EU-related Laws We start by an indicator that is important in terms of understanding how much EU impacts on the work of parliaments (and on domestic polities more broadly) the share of national EU-related laws. It is also relevant in terms of its relationship with the other indicators that is, is there a correlation between the share of EU-related laws and the share of committee or party group meeting time taken up European matters? Membership in the EU imposes severe constraints on the policy autonomy of national parliaments. Apart from EU directives that require national transposition, domestic legislation can also be indirectly shaped or influenced by European integration, for example in the form of policy diffusion and peer pressure under the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) and other soft law coordination efforts (Duina & Raunio 2007). However, it must simultaneously be emphasised that the famous 80 percent prediction made by the Commission President Jacques Delors in the late 1980s about the share of legislation that would flow from Brussels has proven to be misplaced. 4 Previous research has shown this share to be much lower, even when including domestic laws that were in some way inspired by the EU. For example, Töller (2008) demonstrates that while the share of EU-inspired legislation enacted by the German Bundestag has more than doubled since the mid-1980s, in the 15th election period ( ) 39 percent of the laws were influenced by a European impulse. König and Mäder (2008) also show that the share of German legislation with an EU impulse has increased over time, with 24 percent of the laws enacted between 1976 and 2005 having such a European connection. According to Hegeland (2005) only 6 percent of the legislation adopted by the Swedish Riksdag between 1995 and 2004 contained a reference to an EU law. Johannesson (2005) in turn showed that between 1998 and percent of the Riksdag s legislation was related to binding EU legislation, with an additional 10 percent in some way related to the Union. The most likely explanation for this relatively low share of EU-related domestic laws is that most of the legislation adopted by national parliaments deals with policy sectors where the EU has no formal competence to enact its own laws (see also Page 1998; Bovens & Yesilkagit 2004; Blom-Hansen & Christensen 2004). One must also be aware of the measurement problems involved in attempting to conduct comparative research on the share of EU-related Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1,

5 legislation (see Töller 2007, 2008). First, production of laws differs between EU Member States, with some parliaments approving considerably less laws than others. In some EU countries the adoption of legislation may be delegated more extensively to the government, which issues decrees in place of laws processed by parliaments. Second, much of EU legislation consists of regulations that are directly binding and hence do not require parliamentary approval. Perhaps the most significant problem is measuring the indirect influence of European integration. Apart from pressure and policy diffusion resulting from OMC and other forms of intergovernmental policy coordination, governments may import policies from other EU countries or follow the EU s recommendations without this being explicitly acknowledged in the text of the initiative. This applies particularly to policy sectors most notably foreign and defence policies where the outputs are normally not laws, but other types of decisions. Given that the consecutive Treaty amendments enacted since the late 1980s have basically all extended the policy reach of the EU, and in line with previous research discussed above, we hypothesise that the share of EU-related laws has increased over time. As Finland joined the EU in 1995, just after the completion of the EU s law-intensive internal market, we expect this increase to be relatively small. Committee Time Parliamentary decision making is based on interaction between party groups and committees. Committees are where most of the legislative work is carried out, with the government s (or EU s) initiatives normally examined by the specialised committee(s) before the matter is debated and voted upon in the plenary. Research has also shown that extensive use of committees facilitates stronger government scrutiny and that legislatures have invested resources in committee work in order to reduce the informational advantage of the government (Strøm et al. 2003; Norton 1998). Thus legislatures with strong committees, such as the Nordic parliaments, are normally ranked among the most powerful in Europe (Bergman & Strøm Forthcoming). There are at least three potential indicators for measuring how the EU impacts on parliamentary committees. The first would be to examine how often committees produce reports on European matters. The main problem with this is that while in some EU countries committees must report on European issues to the plenary or to the EAC, in most parliaments there are no similar requirements. In Finland the specialised committee(s) must, according to the constitution, report on EU matters in writing to the Grand Committee, the EAC of the Eduskunta (Jääskinen 2000; Raunio 2007a, 2007b). However, given that there is no similar arrangement throughout the national parliaments of the Union, the volume of committee reports cannot 78 Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1, 2010

6 be used as an indicator in comparative research. A second option would be to measure the share of EU-related agenda items in committee meetings. The problem with this approach is that it does not tell us anything about the actual time spent on various matters under consideration. As a result, the indicator we suggest is the share of committee meeting time used for EU matters. This indicator can easily be utilised in comparative research, either through examining committee records that specify the times for the start and finish of debates on various items or through surveys of committee clerks. The advantage of this indicator is that it makes it possible to analyse the weight of EU matters vis-à-vis domestic agenda items. The hypothesis for this article is that EU matters occupy a more prominent role on the agendas of committees than of party group meetings or of plenary sessions. The explanation is that in the Eduskunta the specialised committees must report on EU matters, and hence they need to process such matters in their meetings. Second, we expect to find considerable variation between the committees, depending on the division of competencies between the Union and the Member States in the respective policy areas. Hence European affairs should appear more frequently on the agendas of committees whose jurisdiction covers domains where the EU is either the main legislator (e.g., agriculture and environment policies) or is otherwise an influential actor (e.g., foreign or economic policies). In future comparative research, the hypothesis could be formulated so that the share of committee time spent on EU matters would vary between Member States depending on the extent to which committees are involved in European affairs. After all, while in some legislatures the role of the specialised committees has by now become institutionalised, in most parliaments EU matters are effectively centralised to the EAC. Plenary Time According to the hypotheses formulated above, European matters are debated more frequently in the committees than in the plenary. Indeed, much of previous literature has lamented the lack of plenary debates on Europe, arguing that such debates might generate more interest in integration among citizens. While the ability of plenary debates to reduce the gap between the citizens and EU can be doubted, existing research clearly shows the limited role of the plenary in European affairs (e.g., Bergman et al. 2003, 175). This similarity between EU countries is explained by two factors. First, the establishment of EACs reduces the use of plenary as EACs coordinate parliamentary work in EU matters and are often authorised to speak on behalf of the whole parliament in these issues. Second, this strategy also serves the interests of political parties. Regardless of the data used, there is Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1,

7 a consistent body of work showing that national parties across the EU are ideologically less cohesive on integration than on traditional socioeconomic issues that dominate domestic political discourse (e.g., Hix 1999; Thomassen & Schmitt 1999; Marks & Steenbergen 2004). Moreover, according to European Election Study (EES) data, parties are considerably more supportive of integration than their voters (Mattila & Raunio 2006). Avoiding public debates on European integration is thus a logical response from vote-seeking political parties. Governing parties probably want to monitor the government in EU matters behind closed doors in the EAC and in the party groups without public criticism that might damage the reputation of the cabinet (Auel 2007). 5 Considering that the main opposition parties are on average no more coherent over EU than governing parties and/or have similar preferences on integration, they are unlikely to demand more plenary debates about Europe. Indeed, main parties in several EU countries, especially in the Nordic region, continue to depoliticise European integration through cross-party cooperation behind closed doors in the EAC with the aim of manufacturing consensus in national integration policy (Bergman & Damgaard 2000). Party Group Meeting Time As parliamentary decision making is based on interaction between party groups and committees, party groups discuss in their meetings the same topics that appear on the agendas of the committees and the plenary. European matters are probably debated in party group meetings before they feature on the agendas of the EACs. Given the difficulties parties face over European integration, it is hypothesised that the share of party group meeting time focused on EU matters is lower than the share of committee time. Party size is a potential factor that needs to be taken into consideration. We expect smaller parties to spend less time on European matters than larger party groups. Variation is explained here by policy influence: as the possibilities of small parties to influence national EU policy, or indeed bargaining at the European level, is marginal, they do not have incentives to invest scarce resources in European issues. Table 1 shows the distribution of votes in Eduskunta elections since the early 1990s. The Share of Parliamentary Questions and Confidence Votes Our final indicator focuses on the activities of individual representatives and groups of MPs. Individual deputies have usually broadly similar rights throughout European parliaments: they can propose new laws or that certain topics be debated in the plenary or in committees, but these instruments are strongly constrained by party groups whose prior approval is 80 Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1, 2010

8 Table 1. Distribution of Votes in Eduskunta Elections since the Early 1990s and the Position of the Parties and Their Supporters on EU Membership in the 1994 Referendum (%) Party Party line in the 1994 referendum and the share of party supporters voting in favour of membership Centre Party Yes (36) Social Democratic Party Yes (75) National Coalition Yes (89) Left Alliance No decision (24) Green League No decision (55) Swedish People s Party Yes (85) Christian Democrats No (10) Rural Party 1 No (20) Young Finns 2 Yes True Finns Others TOTAL Notes: 1 The Rural Party was disbanded after the 1995 elections. The True Finns, established that same year, can be considered its successor. 2 The Young Finns was established in The party failed to gain seats in the 1999 elections and was subsequently disbanded. 3 The Left Alliance and the Green League did not adopt official positions prior to the referendum. Sources: Statistics Finland; Paloheimo (2000, 58). usually required for their successful use. However, parliamentary questions are different as they are normally a tool individual MPs can use rather freely for their own purposes. Parliamentary questions are multifunctional, and MPs ask questions for several reasons. Among the most important are asking for information, committing the government to making a public formal statement and pressing it for action, defending constituency interests and informing the policy makers of problems with which they might be unfamiliar. The attractiveness of parliamentary questions is enhanced by the fact that MPs can practically raise any issue they want. Parliamentary questions are used in every EU national legislature, but there is variation between the parliaments regarding both the types of questions used and the procedural details concerning the submission and answering of questions (Wiberg 1995; Strøm et al. 2003). The parliament, and specifically the opposition, can also put forward a motion of no confidence, the procedural rules of which vary between national legislatures (Strøm et al. 2003). Confidence votes must normally be put forward by entire party group(s) or by a specified number of MPs.We expect to find that confidence votes are seldom used in connection with European matters. This hypothesis is based on three factors. First, national EU policy is in most countries not a very salient issue in the minds of voters,and hence the opposition would not benefit that much by resorting to that instrument. Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1,

9 Second, the opposition would then be also forced to publicly defend its own policies something that may not be in its interest for reasons explained above. And third, were the opposition to attack the government s European policy in such a public way,the prime minister might blame the opposition for unpatriotic behaviour that undermines the success of the government (and the national interest ) in subsequent EU negotiations (Benz 2004, 881; Auel & Benz 2005a, 379). It is also probable that the share of parliamentary questions on EU matters is low. This expectation is based on two factors: information on European matters is often available faster from other sources (direct contacts with ministries or with the European level), and as EU is of low salience to most citizens, asking questions on EU matters is not important in terms of credit-claiming or re-election. The indicators introduced above were all chosen with comparative research in mind; each of them can be applied to all or nearly all national parliaments in a functionally equivalent manner. They are also indicators that cover the main aspects of parliamentary work (lawmaking, constituency representation, control of the government) and the main forums (committees, party groups, plenaries) inside European parliaments. Next we shall test our hypotheses in the context of the Eduskunta. Empirical Analysis Share of EU-related Laws The first indicator is the share of EU-related laws (Figure 1 and Table 2). Between 1992 and 2007 the Eduskunta produced 9,210 laws; 987 (11 percent) of these contained an explicit reference to the EU. 6 We acknowledge that this low share may be partially explained by our strict operationalisation requiring such explicit references to the EU. However, our findings are in line with previous research from other EU countries and offer further proof of the low share of domestic laws that are influenced by European integration. The results are also partly in line with our hypothesis about the increase of EU-related laws. Whereas the share of these remained around 10 percent until 2003, since 2004 over 15 percent of the laws approved by the Eduskunta have contained references to the EU.The peak was in 2004 when 25 percent of the laws were related to the EU. It is noteworthy that our measure in fact overestimates the impact of the EU as it covers not only direct references to EU laws in the strict legal sense, but also includes all references to all types of regulations that have stemmed from the European Community, the European Economic Community or have been published in the Official Journal. Hence our measure even includes references to soft law declarations and other non-binding EU documents. 82 Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1, 2010

10 Figure 1. Share of Laws Containing a Reference to the EU, (%) Table 2. The Legal Output of the Eduskunta and the Share of EU-related Laws, Year Laws EU-related laws EU-related laws (%) Total 9, Sources: Wiberg (2004, 2006) and authors own calculations. Committee Time As the specialised committees must, according to the constitution, report on EU matters to the Grand Committee, we expected the share of committee time spent on European matters to be higher than the share of plenary and Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1,

11 Table 3. Committee Time Spent on European Matters (%) Committee Administration Agriculture and Forestry Commerce Constitutional Law 5 10 Defence Education and Culture 10 Employment and Equality Environment Finance almost 50* 15 Foreign Affairs 33 Future 10* less than 5 Legal Affairs Social Affairs and Health 20* Transport and Communications Note: *Interviews with committee clerks. Sources: 2004: Eduskunta (2005, 73); 2008: survey of committee clerks. party group meeting time. Table 3 shows the share of committee time taken up by European matters for the two years for which we have data: 2004 and The entries in Table 3 are based on responses by the main committee clerks responsible for administering the agendas of the committee meetings. As a result, they are the best-placed persons to estimate the time spent on EU issues. The question asked was the same in both 2004 and 2008: Please estimate how much of the meeting time of your committee is taken up by EU matters (%). The Grand Committee is excluded from the analysis as it focuses exclusively on European matters. Also the Audit Committee is left out as its jurisdiction is limited to overseeing the management of government finances and compliance with the national budget. While we do not have data on all the committees for both years, we can still draw two interesting conclusions. First, the share of committee time spent on EU issues is considerably higher than the share of domestic EU-related laws. Indeed, the Eduskunta (2005, 14) itself has estimated that nearly half of all items processed by it are EU matters.that same report also noticed that the workload of committees, measured by the number of agenda items, had roughly doubled as a result of EU membership. For example, in 2003 the specialised committees (excluding the Grand Committee) processed 314 EU matters, 119 of which resulted in a report. That same year the number of domestic items handled by committees was 244 (Eduskunta 2005, 15). As expected, there is considerable variation between the committees, with this variation primarily driven by the allocation of powers between the national and European levels. Committees on Education and Culture and 84 Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1, 2010

12 Future were least burdened by EU matters, while in the Environment, Commerce, and Agriculture and Forestry Committees European questions comprised half or more of the meeting time. Basically all respondents emphasised the difficulties involved in giving exact or even rough estimates as national issues often have a European dimension. Many of the committees (e.g., the Finance Committee) also utilise sections where EU matters appear more frequently than in actual committee meetings. The variation shown in Table 3 is also displayed in the reports produced by the committees to the Grand Committee. From 1995 to 2007 the specialised committees issued on average 168 written opinions per year on EU matters, with particularly the Finance, Agriculture and Forestry, Commerce, Environment, Administration, and Transport and Communications committees producing opinions on EU matters. There are also interesting changes between 2004 and 2008, with some committees spending less time on EU matters in 2008 and others considerably more. In general, the respondents pointed out that the influence of Europe has been increasing over the years, with particularly the Defence, Foreign Affairs, Administration, and Agriculture and Forestry committees feeling more the effect of EU in their work. Also, the years under study differed as the Intergovernmental Conference was under way during the first half of 2004 and that year saw also the enlargement with ten new countries joining the Union. However, 2008 was a much quieter year, with no similar major European processes demanding the attention of national MPs. Indeed, the respondents emphasised that share of committee time spent on European matters depends to a large extent on what is on the agendas of EU institutions. Plenary Time The Eduskunta is a committee-based institution, but it has attempted to make plenary debates a more central aspect of its work (Nousiainen 2006, 293 4, 313 5). In European affairs, the plenary can become involved both before and after decisions are taken at the European level. The Speaker s Council can decide that proposals for EU decisions be debated in the plenary, but in such cases the chamber is not entitled to make formal decisions. The plenary stage is also required when the implementation of directives requires legislation. The prime minister must provide either the plenary or the EAC information on European Council meetings both before and after the summits. The same applies to Treaty amendments, which require the Eduskunta s approval. However, plenary involvement in European matters has so far been very limited. While limitations make it impossible to present longitudinal data, our interviews with Eduskunta officials responsible for the agendas of the Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1,

13 plenaries indicate that European questions feature rarely. Routine EU matters, such as the implementation of directives, are only very seldom debated on the floor. More far-reaching political decisions such as Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), the EU s multi-annual budgetary frameworks, Treaty amendments and, notably, the development of EU foreign and security policy have inspired longer plenary debates. For example, both the Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe and the Lisbon Treaty were each debated for approximately hours. Announcements by the prime minister have also dealt with European matters, with seven such debates organised since The Eduskunta (2005, 18, 40 1) has paid attention to the lack of plenary debates, recommending, for example, that such debates could be held in connection with European Council meetings or about the Commission s annual legislative programmes, or that specific question-times be held on European matters. As discussed in the previous two sections, the main explanation for the brevity of plenary debates is the role accorded to the Grand Committee, which coordinates parliamentary work on EU issues and speaks on behalf of the Eduskunta in such matters. This also serves the interests of Finnish parties.according to EES survey data, Finland had in 2004 one of the lowest levels of party-voter congruence in integration matters, with only Great Britain, Hungary and Luxembourg recording bigger differences (Mattila & Raunio 2006). As European matters produce disagreement within and among parties, public debates on the floor might damage the parties by highlighting these internal cleavages. Party Group Meeting Time Turning to the share of party groups meeting time taken up by European affairs, Table 4 reports findings for the same two years as in the case of committees (2004 and 2008). The entries in Table 4 are based on responses Table 4. The Share of Party Group Meeting Time Spent on European Matters (%) Party Centre Party Social Democratic Party 5 National Coalition Left Alliance 10 (less than) 1 Green League Swedish People s Party Christian Democrats True Finns Sources: Surveys of party group officials. 86 Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1, 2010

14 by party group secretaries responsible for managing the work and agendas of party group meetings. The question asked was the same in both 2004 and 2008: Please estimate how much of the meeting time of your party group is taken up by EU matters (%). As in the case of committees, the respondents emphasised both that the time spent on European matters varies depending on what is on the agenda at the European level and the difficulties involved in isolating EU matters from other agenda items. In fact, the non-responses in Table 4 are explained by respondents carefully explaining how their groups process EU issues and then stating that even arriving at rough estimates is basically impossible. The larger party groups have established specific EU working groups or sections, and this also impacts on the time spent on EU affairs by the entire party group. The limited role of the plenary and the findings reported in Table 4 clearly confirm our hypothesis about committees spending more time on EU matters than the full chamber or the party groups. As for party size, the lack of data makes it difficult to provide any definitive answers but the interviews did indicate that larger party groups (Centre, National Coalition, Social Democrats) discuss EU matters more than smaller parties. In addition, we have data from 2000 when the parties European or international secretaries were asked how much of their time national-level party organs annually spend on EU matters. The response categories (in percentages) were less than 10, 10 25, 25 50, and 75 or more. European issues played a more important role in the work of parliamentary groups than in other national party organs: five parties replied percent and only one less than 10 percent (Raunio 2000, 51). It is also evident that the interest displayed by senior MPs or party leaders is crucial: if they are interested in EU affairs, then such matters receive more attention in the party groups. At any rate, EU matters seem to really be the preserve of select few individuals within the groups. It is also worth asking whether the time (at most 20 percent; Table 4) dedicated to European affairs is sufficient for effective intra-party scrutiny or policy formulation. Recent comparative research on the Europeanisation of national parties has cast doubts on the effectiveness of such monitoring by party groups, with evidence from six EU countries indicating that party leaderships largely escape any such control from their own MPs (Poguntke et al. 2007). This suggests that there may be an additional dimension of the democratic deficit, one that is inside political parties (Ladrech 2007, 953). Share of Parliamentary Questions and Confidence Votes Our final indicator focuses on parliamentary questions and confidence votes. Interpellations have in recent decades become the standard form of a confidence vote. Although an individual MP can initiate interpellations, they Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1,

15 are usually put forward by opposition party groups. A minimum of twenty signatures (10 percent of MPs) is needed for an interpellation to be presented to the government or an individual minister. The number of interpellations has increased steadily (Raunio & Wiberg 2008, 594), and their main objective is to raise the profile of the opposition and perhaps also to stimulate debate on topical issues (Nousiainen 2006, 311 2). The role of parliamentary questions has also become more important over time (Wiberg 1994). Finnish MPs can table both written and oral questions, with the latter in the form of a televised monthly question time, during which MPs can spontaneously put questions to the ministers on topics of their own choice. While the impact of questions is hard to measure, their steady increase shows that members find them worthwhile (Raunio & Wiberg 2008, 594). Between 1995 and 2007 three out of 46 interpellations (7 percent) focused on European affairs, with these interpellations tabled in 1998, 2003 and Two of them dealt with the EU s agricultural policy and its impact on Finland. A total of 467 out of 14,113 written questions (3 percent) were on EU matters. As for oral questions, the share was somewhat higher: 8 percent (209 out of 2,663 questions). These results are in line with our hypotheses about parliamentary questions and confidence votes being used only seldom in connection with European policy. 8 Discussion The purpose of this article has been twofold: to suggest indicators for measuring the Europeanisation of national parliaments and to test these indicators through a case study of the Finnish Eduskunta. We acknowledge that our indicators do not capture all dimensions of the potential impact of Europe on national legislatures. In this article we have been primarily interested in the top-down dimension of Europeanisation and as a result our indicators have focused on the extent to which Europe penetrates the agendas of parliamentary organs, the use of control instruments and national lawmaking. As we have argued, these indicators can be applied to all national parliaments, and they cover both the main aspects of parliamentary work and the main forums inside European parliaments. Our analysis has three important lessons for future research. First, it has shown how the impact of Europe varies inside the legislature, with parliamentary committees most burdened by European affairs in the Eduskunta. This finding probably results from the constitutional obligation of the committees to report on EU matters, and hence the situation is likely to be different in most other national parliaments. The extent to which EU matters are centralised to the EACs may thus be a key variable in explaining how Europe impacts on domestic legislatures. In legislatures where 88 Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1, 2010

16 European matters are mainly isolated to the EAC, the other committees should deal more infrequently with EU questions. Second, we showed how the plenary performs a marginal role in European matters. Considering that this finding is explained by two factors not specific to Finland the EAC coordinating parliamentary work in European questions and speaking on behalf of the full chamber in such matters, and the strategic incentives of political parties we expect the results to be largely similar across the EU. The only parties that probably would like to have debates about Europe are those that are more in tune with their electorate over Europe and/or are internally cohesive about integration. These parties are normally either populist parties or located at the extremes of the left-right dimension (radical right or left parties), that can, for example, use such debates to criticise the government for not defending the national interests well enough in EU negotiations (De Wilde 2008). Given that they are often relatively small parties in their respective political systems, they may even not have enough influence over the parliamentary agenda to force such debates to be held. However, perhaps the most important result of this article concerns the methodological difficulties involved in separating EU affairs from other matters handled by national parliaments. What actually constitutes an EU issue? While certain questions such as Treaty amendments, enlargements or EU budget can be categorised rather easily as European matters, more typical are cases where EU and domestic spheres become so intertwined that isolating the EU dimension is very challenging. This applies particularly to policy-related questions (e.g., agriculture, economy, environment), regardless of whether the matter is of European or national origin. Not only does an increasing share of matters formally decided at the national level have a European dimension, but also debates on EU laws or Europeanlevel processes can be dominated by domestic issues. Considering the interdependence of EU and national agendas, it is probable that the kinds of problems identified in this article will only become more serious in the future. Hence these methodological concerns should be taken into account in future research. NOTES 1. For reviews of literature on national parliaments and European integration, see Goetz and Meyer-Sahling (2008) and Raunio (Forthcoming). 2. The interview and survey data is from 2004 and The data for 2004 consists of 22 face-to-face interviews with committee clerks and the secretaries of party groups. We are grateful to research assistant Mari Männistö for help with the interviews. The 2008 data comes from a survey of committee and party group secretaries, and from interviews with other Eduskunta officials. In addition, we have used other data sources from our previous research on the Eduskunta and the interview data collected by the Centre for Parliamentary Studies at the University of Turku. Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1,

17 3. There are several competing or alternative definitions of Europeanisation. See the volumes edited by Graziano and Vink (2007), Bulmer and Lequesne (2005) and Featherstone and Radaelli (2003). 4. My impression by and large and apologies to those whose pride in the keen interest taken by their national parliaments in European affairs might be offended is that there is an unawareness in many national parliaments of the quiet revolution that is taken place, as a result of which 80% at least of economic, financial and perhaps social legislation will be flowing from the Community by 1993 (Debates of the European Parliament, 15 June 1988, pp ). 5. As of 2008, 10 of the 27 EACs met behind closed doors (in the case of bicameral parliaments, this refers to EACs of the lower houses or to joint committees of the two chambers). In addition, most EACs that meet in public can hold sessions behind closed doors, with such restrictive practices normally used in connection with more sensitive EU matters. 6. All laws were taken from the electronic database of Finnish legal acts ( and were coded as EU-related only when they contained an explicit reference to at least one of the following: the European Community (EY), European Economic Community (ETY) or Official Journal (EYVL). This was operationalised by searching semi-automatically for EU legal terms (EY, ETY, EYVL) in the legal texts proper in their entirety. 7. The topics of these debates were the Convention (14 May 2003; duration 3 hrs 50 min), the IGC (18 December 2003; 1 hr), Common Agricultural Policy (16 June 2004; 2 hrs 50 min), European Council meeting (22 June 2004; 2 hrs), Northern Dimension and topical EU matters (8 June 2005; 2 hrs 50 min), objectives for the Finnish EU presidency (21 June 2006; 3 hrs), topical EU matters (26 October 2006; 1 hr 10 min) and the Finnish EU presidency (11 January 2007; 1 hr 50 min). 8. The results were obtained from the new online database maintained by the Eduskunta using the keyword search European Union ( Euroopan unioni ), which is a general search term subsuming other more specific EU categories.the same approach was used for interpellations and written and oral questions. REFERENCES Auel, K Democratic Accountability and National Parliaments: Redefining the Impact of Parliamentary Scrutiny in EU Affairs, European Law Journal, 13, Auel, K. & Benz, A. 2005a. The Politics of Adaptation: The Europeanisation of National Parliamentary Systems, Journal of Legislative Studies, 11, Auel, K. & Benz, A., eds. 2005b. The Europeanisation of Parliamentary Democracy, Journal of Legislative Studies 11(3 4) (Special Issue). Barrett, G., ed National Parliaments and the European Union: The Constitutional Challenge for the Oireachtas and Other Member State Legislatures. Dublin: Clarus Press. Benz, A Path-dependent Institutions and Strategic Veto Players: National Parliaments in the European Union, West European Politics, 27, Bergman, T. & Damgaard, E., eds Delegation and Accountability in European Integration: The Nordic Parliamentary Democracies and the European Union, Journal of Legislative Studies 6(1) (Special Issue). Bergman, T. & Strøm, K., eds. Forthcoming. Democratic Institutions in Decline? Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Bergman, T., Müller, W. C., Strøm, K. & Blomgren, M Democratic Delegation and Accountability: Cross-national Patterns, in Strøm, K., Müller, W. C. & Bergman, T., eds, Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blom-Hansen, J. & Christensen, J. G Den Europaeiske forbindelse. Aarhus: Magtudredningen. Bovens, M. & Yesilkagit, K The Impact of European Legislation on National Legislation in the Netherlands. Paper prepared for the 2004 NIGH Conference, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 29 October. 90 Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1, 2010

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