Role of National Parliaments in the European Union

The Lisbon Treaty, signed on the 13th December 2007, has given National Parliaments the opportunity to consider whether the subsidiarity principle is properly interpreted by the European Commission, when proposing new pieces of legislation.

Since its entry into force, any national Parliament or any chamber of a national Parliament:

• Will have eight weeks to send a reasoned opinion stating why it considers that a draft legislative proposal does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity to the Presidents of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission. The EU institutions shall take account of these reasoned opinions.
• If the reasoned opinions on a draft legislative proposal's non-compliance with the principle of subsidiarity represent at least one third of all the votes allocated to the national Parliaments the draft must be reviewed. Each national Parliament shall have two votes (in countries with a bicameral Parliament each of the two chambers shall have one vote). After such review, the Commission or the appropriate institution MAY decide to maintain, amend or withdraw the draft. Reasons must be given for this decision.
• Under the new ordinary legislative procedure, reasoned opinions on the non-compliance with the principle of subsidiarity should represent at least a simple majority of the votes allocated to the national Parliaments. In that case, the proposal MUST be reviewed. After such a review, the Commission or the relevant EU institution may decide to maintain, amend or withdraw the proposal.

About the Parliaments of the EU Member States

In Member States of the European Union, if the parliament has only one chamber, it is wholly directly elected in all cases. If there are two chambers, the lower house is directly elected in all cases, while the upper house can be directly elected (e.g. the Senate of Poland); or indirectly elected, for example, by regional legislatures (e.g. the Federal Council of Austria); or non-elected, but representing certain interest groups (e.g. the National Council of Slovenia); or non-elected (though by and large appointed by elected officials) as a remnant of a non-democratic political system in earlier times (as in the House of Lords in the United Kingdom). With the exception of the parliaments of Malta and Spain, all national parliaments of the EU Member States have at least one Representative in the European Parliament. Click here to see the full list of Representatives.

The Interparliamentary EU Information Exchange (IPEX) is a website intended to support inter-parliamentary cooperation in the European Union by providing a platform for the electronic exchange of EU-related information between parliaments in the Union. The IPEX website enables the retrieval of relevant documents and information relating to the scrutiny of national parliaments, combined with information about the process at the European level. The IPEX platform also functions as a portal for information concerning substantive and procedural questions with regard to scrutiny in EU matters and promote best practices between the national parliaments.