Representative Democracy in the EU Representative Democracy in the EU Recovering Legitimacy Edited by Steven Blockmans Sophia Russack Contributors Pavol Baboš Bogdan Mure an Wojciech Białożyt Filip Pazderski ș Steven Blockmans Eleonora Poli Erik Brandes Antoinette Primatarova Karlis Bukovskis Sophia Russack Filippa Chatzistavrou Héctor Sánchez Margalef Rasmuss Filips Geks Stefan Schaller Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska Felix Schenuit Dídac Gutiérrez-Peris Paul Schmidt Juha Jokela Mihai Sebe Iveta Kazoka Atanas Slavov Maja Kluger Dionigi Daniel Smilov Jan Kovář Zdeněk Sychra Petr Kratochvíl Ilke Toygür Jacek Kucharczyk Eliza Va Romain Le Quiniou Aneta Világi ș Susan Milford-Faber Elizabete Vizgunova Ignacio Molina Nicolai von Ondarza CEPS, Brussels Rowman & Littlefield International, London CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies) is an independent and non-partisan think tank based in Brussels. Its mission is to produce sound policy research leading to constructive solutions to the challenges facing Europe. The European Policy Institutes Network (EPIN) comprises 38 renowned think tanks and policy institutes from 25 European countries. EPIN aims to contribute to the debate on the future of Europe through expert analysis of the different national and EU- level debates. EPIN is coordinated by CEPS. Steven Blockmans is Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Institutions unit at CEPS and Professor of EU External Relations Law and Governance at the University of Amsterdam Sophia Russack is Researcher at CEPS Institutions Unit and a PhD candidate at Maastricht University. The editors of this book convened a meeting for the contributing authors in Cogenhagen in November 2018. We are grateful for the funding provided by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission (Project No. 587830-EPP-1-2017-1-BE- EPPJMO-NETWORK) and to the colleagues at Think Tank Europa, in particular Catharina Sørensen and Bjarke Møller, for organising the workshop. The editors wish to thank Constantin Sunnerberg for the cover art. The views expressed herein are those of the authors alone. Published by Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd. 6 Tinworth Street, London, SE11 5AL www.rowmaninternational.com Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd. is an affiliate of Rowman & Littlefield 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706, USA With additional offices in Boulder, New York, Toronto (Canada) and Plymouth (UK) www.rowman.com Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) Place du Congrès 1, 1000 Brussels, Belgium www.ceps.eu Copyright © 2019 CEPS The editors and authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the editor and/or author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-78661-337-0 Hardback 978-1-78661-338-7 Paperback 978-1-78661-339-4 eBook The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS Abbreviations x 1. Introduction Steven Blockmans 1 Part I. Transversal Aspects and Thematic Issues 8 2. Representative democracy under pressure: shocks, agents and users Dídac Gutiérrez-Peris & Héctor Sánchez Margalef 9 3. Uses and abuses of Voting Aid Applications Daniel Smilov & Antoinette Primatarova 27 Part II. EU-level 44 4. EU parliamentary democracy: how representative? Sophia Russack 45 Part III. Country Reports 64 5. The untapped potential of EU affairs in Austria’s Parliament Stefan Schaller, Paul Schmidt & Susan Milford-Faber 65 6. Bulgaria: rising ambition, failing performance Atanas Slavov 89 7. Representative democracy in Czechia: a disconnect between the national and EU level Jan Kovář, Petr Kratochvíl & Zdeněk Sychra 107 8. How functional is the Danish representative model and does it interact with EU dynamics? Maja Kluger Dionigi 129 9. Representative democracy in Finland – functional with limited politicisation of EU affairs Juha Jokela 145 10. The Bundestag in the multilevel system: representing German citizens in the EU Erik Brandes, Nicolai von Ondarza & Felix Schenuit 161 vi 11. Greek parliamentary democracy as a post-representative regime: continuities and discontinuities during austerity Filippa Chatzistavrou 177 12. Does Italian bicameralism double the chance of influencing EU decision-making? Eleonora Poli 199 13. Political ideologies and the EU in Latvia’s representative democracy Rasmuss Filips Geks, Elizabete Vizgunova, Karlis Bukovskis & Iveta Kazoka 215 14. Poland’s political discourse on Europe Wojciech Białożyt, Jacek Kucharczyk, Romain Le Quiniou & Filip Pazderski 241 15. The Europeanisation of representative democracy in Romania Mihai Sebe, Bogdan Mureșan & Eliza Vaș 277 16. Representative democracy in Slovakia: party politics dominates Aneta Világi & Pavol Baboš 299 17. Spain’s weak parliament, growing fragmentation and pro-EU consensus Ignacio Molina & Ilke Toygür 317 18. Not such a clean break: Westminster’s continuous oversight of EU affairs post-Brexit Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska 333 Part IV. Conclusions 358 19. Conclusions Steven Blockmans 359 About the Contributors 374 vii List of Figures and Tables Figure 5.1 Seats in the National Council 67 Figure 5.2 Seats in the Federal Council 67 Figure 8.1 Party activity in the Danish EAC 134 Figure 8.2 The Danish Parliament’s use of political dialogue with the Commission compared with the EU average (frequency) 140 Figure 11.1 Rates of public trust in institutions in Greece, 2007-18 (%) 178 Figure 11.2 Comparative numbers of legislative acts and Acts of Council of Ministers in the period of memorandums, per year, 2010-18 185 Figure 11.3 The evolution of bipartisanship through elections, 1974-2015 (%) 188 Figure 11.4 Number of parliamentary parties, 1974 – 2015 189 Figure 11.5 Number of coalition governments MPs, 2010-19 190 Figure 11.6 Number of MPs leaving their party, 2009-19 191 Figure 11.7. Greek party positions towards the EU on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly opposed) to 7 (strongly in favour), 2006-18 193 Figure 11.8 Abstention rates in Greek national elections, 2009-15 (%) 194 Figure 14.1 What should the future of Poland look like in relation to the EU? 256 Figure 14.2 How important for you personally are the following benefits of European integration? 260 Figure 14.3 Dynamics of support for receiving refugees 262 Figure 14.4 Changing support for relocation of refugees 263 Figure 14.5 The zloty or the euro? 268 Figure 14.6 Levels of distrust towards public institutions correlated with satisfaction with political life in Poland 270 Figure 15.1 Number of EU documents submitted to scrutiny – Chamber of Deputies, Romanian Parliament 284 Figure 15.2 Reasoned opinions regarding compliance with the subsidiarity principle sent to the European Commission by the Romanian Parliament 292 Figure 15.3 Projects of EU legislation under subsidiarity control at the Romanian Senate 293 viii Table 3.1 Basic features of VoteMatchEurope, euandi, EU Vox 2014 and Electio 2014 33 Table 3.2 Reference/lack of reference to the EU level of policymaking in euandi, EU Vox 2014 and VoteMatch Europe 36 Table 3.3 Double-barrelled questions and questions with quantifications and qualifications in the common questionnaires of euandi, EU Vox 2014 and VoteMatchEurope 37 Table 5.1 Topics of plenary sessions devoted to EU matters 70 Table 5.2 Motions of censure concerning EU matters 73 Table 5.3 Reasoned opinions by the EU sub committee of the Austrian National Council 77 Table 5.4 Reasoned opinions by the EU committee of the Austrian Federal Council 78 Table 5.5 EU documents on the agenda of EU committees in the Austrian Parliament 81 Table 7.1 Opinions on lead candidate procedure 121 Table 11.1 Legislative output under the framework of memorandums, 2010-18 184 Table 13.1 Party affiliations at the EU and national levels 233 Table 13.2 An evaluation of cooperation between European political parties and the associated Latvian national party 235 Table 13.3 Party responses to a survey prior to the national elections 236 Table 14.1 Public opinion on European integration 257 Table 14.2 Public trust towards national and European institutions (average score on a 0-10 scale) 266 Table 14.3 Levels of trust/distrust in public institutions compared for the V4 area 267 Table 14.4 Would you agree to replace the Polish currency (zloty) with the currency common to many EU countries - the euro? (in %) 271 Table 15.1 Scrutiny applied by the Romanian Senate 285 Table 16.1 Legislative proposals in the NRSR from 2016 to 2018 306 Table 16.2 The loyalty of MEPs to their political group 312 Table 17.1 Majorities in the Spanish Congress, 1982-2019 320 Table 17.2 Assessing the Spanish Cortes Generales according to the five ideal-types for parliamentary activities in EU affairs 323 Table 17.3 Spanish parties and the European Parliament (2019-2024) 330 ix ABBREVIATIONS ALDE Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe CoR Committee of the Regions COSAC Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs CSO Civil Society Organisations CVM Cooperation and Verification of Progress Mechanism EAC European Affairs Committee EC European Commission ECI European Citizens’ Initiative ECR European Conservatives and Reformists EEAS European External Action Service EESC European Economic and Social Committee EMU Economic and Monetary Union EU European Union EP European Parliament EPP European People's Party EPIN European Policy Institutes Network ESM European Stability Mechanism EWS Early warning system GUE/NGL European United Left/Nordic Green Left IGC Intergovernmental conference OLAF Anti-Fraud Office PES Party of European Socialists REFIT Regulatory Fitness and Performance S&D Progressive Alliance of Socialist & Democrats xi 1. INTRODUCTION STEVEN BLOCKMANS Representative democracy is beset by a crisis of confidence. With its increasingly vocal critics and assertive opponents, growing numbers of citizens either take parliamentary democracy for granted or doubt its merits.