Comparing the intensity of scrutiny for ‘domestic’ and implementing bills: does transposition of EU law reduce political contestation in national parliaments?

Abstract

Research on the role of national parliaments in European Union (EU) matters dominantly concentrates on ex ante scrutiny and mostly neglects that many parliaments are constitutionally obliged to play an important part in the implementation of EU law into domestic legal orders. The low interest is tied to an argument that even if national parliaments are involved in transposition, they only serve as constrained agents of the EU. This article tests this assumption and inquires whether there are differences between parliaments' scrutiny of bills (laws) transposing EU impulses and 'purely domestic' bills. Analysis is based on quantitative data from the Czech Chamber of Deputies and the Slovak National Council. While the project remains essentially exploratory, results suggest that while the implementing bills are debated considerably less than the domestic bills, for the remaining included indicators the intensity of scrutiny for the former group of bills on average does not differ from the latter group. The findings might therefore challenge the thesis that that the implementation process is mere formality that consequently reduces political contestation in the legislatures.

On time or with a delay? Transposition of EU directives in the Czech Republic in relation to subsidiarity check

“…Despite predictions that transposition processes are politicised in the CEE countries (Falkner and Treib 2008), our results, like those of some other recent studies (cf. Borońska-Hryniewiecka and Grinc 2022; Zbíral 2017), instead show that turning the EWM/PD (with the benefit of equal access of parliaments to information on EU legislative file early on) into an advantage for transposition would demand more expertise, similar to what has been previously found for national scrutiny mechanisms.…”

“…However, the national parliament can still play some important role both in ex-ante control by scrutinising the EU legislative draft or by mandating the government for the decisionmaking in the Council (Winzen 2022) and in ex-post implementation by amending the transposing bill (Dörrenbächer et al. 2015; Zbíral 2017; Zbíral and Grinc 2020). Nonetheless, across the EU, the form and effectiveness of such procedures differ considerably (cf.…”

“…But, in general, the Czech Republic has rarely been a subject of implementation research, except for studies of all 27 member states (such as Toshkov 2012 andZhelyazkova et al 2017), similar to the rest of the CEE. There have also been some (separate) studies comparing the Czech Republic with other countries on the EWM/ PD (Borońska-Hryniewiecka and Grinc 2022; Granat 2017), other tools of parliamentary scrutiny (Finke and Dannwolf 2013), transposition of directives (Zbíral 2017;Zbíral and Grinc 2020), and compliance with EU law (Falkner 2010), and a few individual analyses on implementation of specific policies (such as Baun and Marek 2013). Again, however, nobody has linked both stages of policy-making and tried to empirically investigate an impact of the ex-ante stage with EWM/PD on the ex-post transposition of several EU legislative acts.…”

Perpetual scrutiny? Mutual control among coalition political parties in the executive and parliamentary phases of law-making

“…The first control variable – if a bill implements EU legislation (dummy) – presents a perfect example. It seems to be independent of political interests, and the empirical data confirm that EU-related bills are less scrutinised within the Chamber than purely domestic bills (Zbíral, 2017). Yet ministries can also claim (even non-existent) EU obligations in order to derail resistance to a bill by coalition partners, and this would signify a political strategy.…”

True to Their Name? Activities of Niche Political Parties in the Legislative Process

“…Tři jsou dichotomické a sledují charakteristiku předkládaných legislativních návrhů. První kontrolní proměnná rozlišuje, jestli návrh zákona spočívá v předložení zcela nového zákona, či jde pouze o novelu již platného zákona, druhé případy jsou obvykle méně kontroverzní, nepřitahují tolik pozornost médií a ambice poslanců aktivně se zapojovat do projednávání by měla být nižší [Zbíral 2017]. Druhá kontrolní proměnná si u poslaneckých návrhů zákonů všímá, jestli se na jejich předložení podílel alespoň jeden poslanec dané strany mezery.…”