The Necessity of National Parliaments in the EU’s Democratization
Ph.D. on Constitutional Law, Democritus University of Thrace.
Rapporteur at the Ministry of Finance of Greece (Athens)
The issue that we deal with here is the democratization of the European Union through the participation of national parliaments in its governance. The central concern here is on three elements: First, to what extent the national parliaments after the Treaty of Lisbon are included in the processes of policy- and law-making in the Union and if that participation is essential. Second, if the national parliaments contribute and to what extent to the legitimization of the European Union’s governance. Third, how the participation of the national parliaments in the EU reduces the democratic deficit. For those reasons, it is necessary to examine how the EU was assuring the basic support of the system until the Treaty of Lisbon and why the intensive multilevel crisis that we experience, revealed its institutional and political restrictions. Eventually, an attempt is made to answer the question why the strengthening of the national parliaments and the European Parliament are not uncompromised processes, but their cooperation constitutes the fundamental tool for building a European Union entirely legitimized.
