Ten years after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, has executive predominance in EU-related matters disappeared? How have executive-legislative relations in the EU evolved over a crisis-ridden decade, from the financial and migration crises, to Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic?
The Lisbon Treaty could be expected to lead to the re-balancing of powers in favour of parliaments, for it significantly enhanced the roles of both the European Parliament and national parliaments. A decade later the contributions to this edited volume examine – for the first time in such an extensive breadth and from a multi-level and cross-policy perspective – whether this has actually materialised. They highlight that diverging tendencies may be observed, and that important variations over time have occurred, depending particularly on the occurrence of crises. As stated in the fascinating epilogue by Peter Lindseth (University of Connecticut School of Law), this is an ‘admirably coherent collective volume, whose contributions provide an excellent overview of key aspects of executive-legislative relations in the European system since the Treaty of Lisbon’. This edited volume will hence be of interest to both academics and practitioners interested in future reforms designed at the European and national levels to improve the EU’s democratic quality.
Introduction: Executive–Legislative (Im)balance in the European Union Diane Fromage, Maastricht University, The Netherlands, and Anna Herranz-Surralles Maastricht University, The Netherlands PART I EXECUTIVE–LEGISLATIVE RELATIONS FROM A MULTI-LEVEL PERSPECTIVE 1. Recalibration of Executive–Legislative Relations in the European Union: Strategies Inspired by the Trilemma of Democracy, Sovereignty and Integration Peter Bursens, University of Antwerp, Belgium 2. The Anticipation Function of Interinstitutional Agreements: A Smooth Mechanism to Recalibrate Executive–Legislative Relations Marco Urban, University of Lausanne, Switzerland 3. Divided Accountability of the Council and the European Council: The Challenge of Collective Parliamentary Oversight Elena Griglio, LUISS Guido Carli University, Italy 4. Executive–Legislative Relations and Delegated Powers in the European Union: Continuous Recalibration? Thomas Christiansen, LUISS Guido Carli University, Italy, and Sabina Lange, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia PART II EXECUTIVE–LEGISLATIVE (IM)BALANCE WITHIN MEMBER STATES 5. The Implementation of EU Law in Member States and its Impact on the Relationship between Parliaments and Governments Diane Fromage, Maastricht University, The Netherlands 6. National Strategies of EU Law Transposition: Does the Distinction between Legislative and Executive Measures Matter in Practice? Robert Zbiral, Masaryk University, Czech Republic, and Jan Grinc, Charles University, Czech Republic 7. Failed Constitutional Reforms and Silent Constitutional Transformations in Executive–Legislative Relations: The Case of Italy Nicola Lupo, LUISS Guido Carli University, Italy 8. Short-Lived Reparliamentarisation? A Year of Eff orts to ‘Take Back Control’ from the Executive in the Brexit House of Commons Kathryn Wright, University of York, UK PART III EXECUTIVE–LEGISLATIVE (IM)BALANCE AND VARIATIONS ACROSS POLICY AREAS 9. How the Debates on Trade Policy Helped Rebalance the Executive–Legislative Relationship in Favour of the European Parliament Peter Marton, New Zealand Mission to the EU in Brussels, Belgium 10. A Temporary Recalibration of Executive–Legislative Relations on EU Trade Agreements? The Case of National and Regional Parliaments on CETA and TTIP Cristina Fasone, LUISS Guido Carli University, Italy, and Maria Romaniello, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy 11. Exploring Interaction between National Parliaments and the European Parliament in EU Trade Policy Katharina L Meissner, University of Vienna, Austria, and Guri Rosen, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway 12. The European Parliament’s Role in the Operation of Trade Agreements: Parliamentary Control and Executive – Legislative Balance in External Action Wolfgang Weiß, German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer, Germany 13. Representative Democracy in Financial Crisis Governance: New Challenges in the EU Multi-level System Claudia Wiesner, Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Germany 14. Towards the ‘ Normalisation ’ of Security? Executive– Legislative Relations in an Expanding EU Security and Defence Policy Anna Herranz-Surralles, Maastricht University, The Netherlands 15. The Balance of Powers and the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy Graham Butler, Aarhus University, Denmark 16. All Buzz, No Bite: The Parliamentarisation of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice Angela Tacea, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium 17. Epilogue: Executives, Legislatures and the Semantics of EU Public Law: A Pandemic-Inflected Perspective Peter L Lindseth, University of Connecticut, USA
Diane Fromage is Assistant Professor of EU Law and Anna Herranz-Surrallés is Associate Professor of International Relations, both at Maastricht University.
Reviews for Executive-legislative (Im)balance in the European Union
It is the great strength of this edited volume that it offers such invaluable input - based on excellent empirical work - for addressing ... normative and conceptual questions and for putting them in the right light. I am therefore certain it will find its way in the broad field of EU Legal Studies and Governance. But I hope the book will do more than that. I hope it will equally benefit the work of the Conference on the Future of the EU. --EU Law Live
