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This article examines the role of the standing committees in building consensus within the European Parliament (EP) and asks whether the ability to fulfil this function has remained stable even in the context of enlarged membership after the

Traditionally, much of the focus of the study of politics has been on formal arrangements and formal institutions. In recent years, however, this dominant focus has given way to an increasing concern with informal aspects of politics. This can be said for both the study of comparative politics and international relations more generally and for research on governance within the European Union in particular. Against this background, the aim of this research note is, first, to review the findings of research on informal governance and, second, to explore whether analytical concepts can be applied to the EU, with the aim of bringing greater conceptual clarity to the field and identifying future research agendas in this area. In a final section, the article also addresses the normative dimension of informal governance in the EU, discussing both the benefits and the risks of such arrangements from the perspective of transparency, efficiency and democratic accountability.

In the wake of the Lisbon Treaty, much of the academic debate on national parliaments (NPs) After reviewing the most important provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon on national parliaments, the paper discusses the roles of parliamentary administrations in the scrutiny of EU affairs and the exercise of political oversight over their activities. The concluding section discusses the extent to which the Treaty of Lisbon can be said to have triggered a rise of parliamentary administrations.4

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Much of the discussion about the provisions on national parliaments in the Lisbon

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The series maps the range of disciplines addressing the study of European public administration. In particular, contributions to the series will engage with the role and nature of the evolving bureaucratic processes of the European Union, including the study of the EU's civil service, of organizational aspects of individual institutions such as the European Commission, the Council of Ministers, the External Action Service, the European Parliament, the European Court and the European Central Bank, and of inter-institutional relations among these and other actors. The series also welcomes contributions on the growing role of EU agencies, networks of technical experts and national officials, and of the administrative dimension of multi-level governance, including international organizations. Of particular interest in this respect will be the emergence of a European diplomatic service and the management of the EU's expanding commercial, foreign, development, security and defence policies, as well as the role of institutions in a range of other policy areas of the Union.