Treaty of Lisbon: Strengthening Rights of EU Parliaments & Impact on Citizens - Essay Sample

Introduction

The Treaty of Lisbon has played a significant role in strengthening the rights enjoyed by both national parliaments across the European Union and the European Parliament (EU) in jurisdictive decision-making procedures. The EP has immensely benefited from increased veto powers and legislative rights that ultimately have notable implications for citizens across the EU region since a majority of the resultant legislative decisions impact them directly (Servent 2014). The respective national parliament in Europe equally represents the interests of citizens across the region. For the first time, the Lisbon Treaty affirms that national parliaments in the region are instrumental in actively contributing towards the optimal functioning of the Union. Through the treaty, national parliaments have the right to information that is directly provided by the various EU institutions and additionally have an Early Warning Mechanism (EWM) that allows national parliaments to raise concerns regarding subsidiary infringements formally (Servent 2014). Another important stipulation outlined by the Lisbon Treaty is the formal recognition of the interparliamentary cooperation between the European Union parliament and national parliaments as stipulated in the protocol outlining the role played by national parliaments across the European Union. As a result, national parliaments are better positioned to foster regular and effective interparliamentary cooperation in the Union.

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Recent legal provisions reveal the growing significance of interparliamentary cooperation in formalized intergovernmental decision -making. The policy areas include the interparliamentary conference on Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) and the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) initially held in 2012 (Huff 2013). Additionally, Article 13 of the Fiscal Compact grants national parliaments in Europe a formalized inter-parliamentary exchange in economic governance. Despite these developments, the EU has had a long-standing tradition of inter-parliamentary cooperation. How is inter-parliamentary collaboration developed in the EU, and what forms are classified with either the formal or informal approaches? The paper, therefore, focuses on discussing the development of interparliamentary collaboration in Europe. The paper will reveal that inter-parliamentary cooperation assumes various forms, namely formal approach (an adherence to formal rule) and informal approach (the absence of formal rules). Other types of European inter-parliamentary corporation are determined by parties attending sessions (politicians or administrators) and the level of cooperation (involving national parliaments exclusively at a transnational level or both the EP and national parliaments).

The Development of Inter-Parliamentary Collaboration

The European Union has been rapidly expanding its functions and noted for nature between state and international organizations. A debate has been spurred concerning its democratic legitimacy. The present European integration has been important in advancing the powers of the national executive to extents that surpass those of the legislative (Petrova and Raube 2016). The political word for the phenomenon is deparliamentarization. However, even with great powers, there has been no intent to replace legitimation by the NPs. Most of the elections are not European; hence, the difficulty in replacing legitimation. The incapacity to have European elections limits the EP's claims. Even so, the powers of the European parliament have been advanced due to the treaty by treaty. This has encouraged the Treaty of Lisbon in greater perspectives and aspects.

According to the Treaty of Lisbon, NPs have contributed greatly to the best functioning of the Union. The treaty has been critical to the parliaments, especially in recognition of the role of the cooperation between parliaments. Almost every parliamentary level in Europe has had great issues to ensure an EU-level democratic legitimacy. There have been treaty changes, but these have not affected and altered the fact that NPs do not have the time, expertise, and information to assess their governments as they relate to the European Union (Buzogany 2010). This has altered the capacity to scrutinize even the general and greater EU-level developments. The only level of the government with the powers, time, and expertise in the European parliament. However, there still lacks various and multiple tools that maintain the functioning of the European Executive. Therefore, there is the importance of having inter-parliamentary cooperation for the fact that it could assist the parliamentary levels performs their activities in the best way possible. Additionally, the cooperation is important to ameliorate a democratic deficit of the European Union.

The parliaments play a critical role in the challenge of the democratic deficit as well as giving the best possible solutions. The national parliaments that make up the EU have been termed as failures in encouraging cooperation. This is because the NPs often fail to challenge the EU scrutiny despite their crucial functions for the Union. Cooperation is of importance as the European parliament cannot alone issue the EU with the required democratic legitimacy (Buzogany 2010). The parliaments are viewed as individual entities, yet they have a critical role in the Union. The parliaments are the collective sources of legitimacy and not just isolated institutions. This perspective ought to be emphasized as there is an important link between enhancing inter-parliamentary coordination and ameliorating the democratic deficit of the EU. Inter-parliamentary cooperation is critical for the capacity to fill any gaps existing due to scrutiny and policy making (Wouters and Raube 2012). These gaps cannot be filled by the European parliament or NP on their own.

Inter-parliamentary cooperation is critical because it can compensate for the information advantage enjoyed by executives as a result of the direct involvement with international politics. The cooperation can offer information as well as access to influence for the European Parliament. Only NPs have access to influence when ministers in the council of the European Union are mandated to the parliaments (Wouters and Raube 2012). Encouraging inter-parliamentary coordination could lead to the best control of the executive as well as an enhanced use of the European parliament. Additionally, the cooperation could lead to an enhanced salience of European affairs to NPs. This is so since the coordination depends on democratic legitimacy as it is exhibited by the national level. Cooperation is important, especially because of the treaty of Lisbon.

Formal Approaches

Formally, parliaments interact in multiple ways. It has been known that interaction and cooperation are evident among the national parliaments in the EU. Even so, national parliaments interact also with the EP (Neunreither 2005). A debate has been evidenced on the disagreements between EPs and NPs. The EP depends on subsidiarity poses discernible tension to find multiple supranational solutions. To some critics, any parliamentary institutions should not be perceived as being involved in a battlefield. The importance of cooperation is such that variations between national parliaments ought to be eliminated. NPs have different views on the EP, and that is dependent on the cultural liberalism of the party involved (Neunreither 2005). In that case, the existing conservative parties are not prone to encourage coordination with the EP. The association that exists between parliamentary levels is that of coordination.

The Treaty of Lisbon encouraged parliamentary control over Europol (Moor and Vermeulen 2010). Even so, there is little cooperation because of the lack of the required resources to channel inter-parliamentary coordination in matters pertaining to control. It is difficult to measure the extent as well as the existence of inter-parliamentary cooperation in the EU. It is even quite impossible to be precise about the impacts of inter-parliamentary cooperation because of the existing challenge of assessing the influence of single entities on policies and politics. For European parliaments, there are methodological difficulties that make it difficult to measure the extents. This phenomenon similarly exists with NPs as parliaments are influenced and influence through various diverse cooperative methods. Even so, measuring the parliament's action on the EU is critical.

The treaty of Lisbon has been important in strengthening the rights of both the EP and NPs, especially during decision-making (Moor and Vermeulen 2010). The European parliament has had many benefits from bigger legislative rights as well as extended veto powers. Both these have various effects on EU citizens. This formal approach is simple and quite straightforward, as various legislative decisions affect the people directly. The citizens of the EU are represented in the parliament. The presence of the Lisbon treaty has been important in acknowledging that NPs are contributing to the best productivity of the European Union. The Lisbon treaty ensures that the people get the right to information directly from the EU institutions (Moor and Vermeulen 2010). The treaty has an Early Warning Mechanism (EWM), where NPs are encouraged to formally give their grievances concerning subsidiary infringements. The treaty acknowledges inter-parliamentary cooperation in a formal dimension according to the protocol of the role of NP in EU. Therefore, there is room for determining the organization and the encouragement of an important inter-parliamentary collaboration in the EU.

With changing legal provisions, there is an increased relevance of inter-parliamentary coordination on the aspect of formalized intergovernmental decision-making (Moor and Vermeulen 2010). The concept of inter-parliamentary cooperation has had a long-standing tradition within the EU. With changing political times, new forms of cooperation have been triggered by Ongoing European integration. Even so, the Conference of Speakers of the Parliaments of the EU remains to be the best renowned form of inter-parliamentary coordination. This started in Rome in 1963. This conference has had annual meetings that involve speakers of the NP and the president of the EP. Every conference is headed by the president of the EP. In that connection, the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs (COSAC) remains to be the most renowned forum of inter-parliamentary coordination (Fromage 2016). There have been meetings since 1989 before full recognition in 1997. It was also made in accordance with the first protocol to the Treaty of Amsterdam concerning the Role of National Parliaments in the European Union.

COSAC has written various biannual reports concerning EU practices and procedures. The intent is to give information concerning various advancements at the EU level as well as parliamentary actions. Also, formally, the COSAC has been important in collaborating and ensuring that only the best opinions are given (Fromage 2016). COSAC also formally cooperates with the EU conference of speakers to liaise with coordinators administratively. Besides the formal participation of COSAC in inter-parliamentary cooperation, there have been other formal formats for coordination between the EP and any other national counterparts (Fromage 2016). However, most of the activities happen on an irregular basis. Presently, there have been Joint Parliamentary Meetings in a common format. The Joint Parliamentary Meetings have been planned and started by the EP in NP of the country holding a rotating presidency. However, there has been a decre...