An information network of officials? Dissecting the role and nature of the network of parliamentary representatives in the European Parliament

Abstract

Enhancing the role of national parliaments in the European Union's decisionmaking process has for some time been a popular way in which policymakers have sought to address legitimacy problems in the European Union, the Early Warning Mechanism being only one example. In response to these developments, an increasing number of scholars have addressed the question of how parliaments make use of these powers in practice. An important dimension of the process -the role of parliamentary officials in parliamentary scrutiny and control -has so far been neglected in the literature. Against this background, this article examines the role of the representatives of national parliaments in the European Parliament with the aim of understanding the role and the nature of this 'bureaucratic network'. While falling short of an epistemic community, these officials play an important role in enabling parliamentary scrutiny through the dissemination of information.

Subsidiarity watchdogs and the kennel of trilogues: when do they bark? The role of National Parliaments in trilogue negotiations

“…With regard the institutionalist elements of our interpretation of the findings, we found that MPs make use of the informal network set up as a result of the Lisbon tools in order to lower the transaction costs of collecting information on what decisions were taken during trilogues (De Ruiter, 2013). MPs that have an interest in the specific issue at stake (Jensen & Sindbjerg Martinsen, 2015) resort to the respective network of liaison officers in Brussels (Neuhold & Högenauer, 2016) that they have developed for another purpose, to shed light on the 'black box' of trilogues (Brandsma, 2019;Greenwood & Roederer-Rynning, 2019, p. 321). Clearly, NPs put the 'non-standard' role of 'networkers' to use, beyond the agenda-setting phase to monitor certain decisions in trilogue negotiations by linking up with other parliaments, but also with other EU institutions, in particular, the Council and the EP.…”

“…This brings us to some starting points for future research. First, we find in all NPs we researched that through the institutionalization of the Lisbon tools, both mandating as well as non-mandating NPs have increasingly become networkers, forging more closer links with other NPs through the EU liaison network (Neuhold & Högenauer, 2016). All NPs we examined in this study use the network to obtain information on the progress of the EU legislative process.…”

“…A key insight we obtained from our interviews is that all NPs make use of the network set up as a response to the institutionalization of the 'Lisbon tools' in order to shed light on what happens in trilogue negotiations. This network consists mainly of EU liaison officers and is apparently not only used for coordinating yellow cards between NPs as part of the EWS in the agenda-setting phase (Neuhold & Högenauer, 2016). As one liaison officer puts it: 'you have to knit a network like a sweater, you have to work on that every day.…”

The mainstreaming of EU affairs: a challenge for parliamentary administrations

“…In addition to their core task of organisational support, administrators often provide procedural advice, substantive advice, help with the preselection of relevant EU issues and sometimes even with the drafting of reasoned opinions, resolutions and other parliamentary decisions (Högenauer et al, 2016;Högenauer & Christiansen, 2015). In addition, Neuhold and Högenauer (2016) illustrate the crucial role of the network of permanent representatives of national parliaments in the European Parliament (NPRs) in the day-to-day coordination of scrutiny across national parliaments. In parallel to these comparative studies on the extent of bureaucratisation of EU affairs scrutiny, academics have started to conceptualise the roles of staff (Högenauer et al, 2016) and to analyse the nature of the political checks on bureaucratic activity (Christiansen et al, 2014;Winzen, 2014) and to compare the work of parliamentary staff to executive bureaucracies (cf.…”

With a little help from our friends

“…He finds that one national parliament can take on the role of "initiator" for a yellow card, that COSAC can provide an informal venue for contact between MPs to lobby for a yellow card, and that the liaison officers play a crucial role in coordination and information exchange (p. 1412). Neuhold and Högenauer (2016) more strongly emphasize the importance of contacts at the administrative level. They find that the national parliamentary representatives in Brussels make up a routinised information network that facilitates effective domestic scrutiny and use of the yellow card procedure (p. 16).…”