The role of the European Parliament

The subroutine of the atomic number 63an parliamentINTRODUCTIONThe division of spots among an executive, a legislature and a judiciary (Montesquieus tri bulge outite brass, The Spirit of Laws, 1748) is the common feature of the study democratic out business organisations. The sevens/ depicted object fictionalization as a voice of the people cig bette be considered as the institution that legitimizes system as a whole. Every country has its own parliamentary system, recognized and identified by the citizens. The European parliament as the EU take legislature was created on the model of its counterparts. However its perception is fundamentally different. unrivaled prat comp atomic number 18 the inhering government of some(prenominal), bailiwick and European Parliament, status of their members or ships company system exactly what undermines all the comparisons is the context in which these bodies argon placed. The role of the European Parliament is determined by the nature of the EU and its sui generis character a semi semi governmental system on its own chastise. It break ups on the role of the institutions, division of competences and inter-institutional relations that differ from those at the case aim. Lack of traditional government has a signifi understructuret impact on the dress of the European semipolitical parties at heart the system. in that respect is no executive to differentiate with nor to oppose to. The European party system is based on devil competing principals that posses different resources to shape de cockeyedour of their MEPs agents- subject parties and the European political parties.EU is very often contested because of the lack of the legitimacy. The importance of the European elections is diminished because of the lack of electoral connection with the public and dominance of the issue issues (second stage elections). The internal procedures as rise as decision qualification function atomic number 18 too complex to be solo understood by an average citizen. As a consequence in that respect is a different milieu for the parties to operate in at the national and the EU train. It generates diverse level of cohesiveness, abilities to check up on, authorises and rewards. All these factors decide on the way political parties organize at each level bodiedly or individually and what are the motivators that determine their choice. Are they in fact weaker in the European Parliament if compares to those in the domestic parliaments in Europe? If it is the case what are the main reasons that make them weaker? Which of the lsquoprincipals has more charm?I leave behind contend that due to the different constitutional building of the EU lack of government performance of the European parties is less(prenominal) apparent than those at the national level. As a consequence the incentives for incarnate party governance can be indeed considered weaker than it is a case for the domest ic parliaments. However evaluation of these incentives can non be oversimplified. These deuce levels are interlinked and mutually dependent. Growing cohesiveness inwardly the political gatherings can be a merit of both national and European party levels. Importance of the EP (especially afterward the Lisbon Treaty) draws more and more attention to what does chance in the EP. Its growing author provides national parties with additional incentives to organize collectively at the supra-domestic level in order to maximize long suit of their actions.Firstly I will emphasize the main features of the European party system, its expression, mechanisms and levels of collective organic law. The first part will be divided in dickens sections brief instauration of the nomenclature used in the context of the European parliamentary system and theory of two principals the system is based on. tricely I will make common incentives for collective party organization, that can be found at bo th levels. In the third part, I will focus on European dimension of these incentives. Forth part will contain a comparative analysis of two levels national and European presenting the main differences. Given to the information, presented in the prior chapters, in the fifth genius, I will firmness what determines take sort of the MEPs and internal-party cohesiveness. In the last, sixth part, I will come to concluding statements.I. EUROPEAN company SYSTEM STRUCTURE AND MECHANISMSStructure of the party system in the European Parliament is characterized by its multiplicity of organization levels and actors knobbed. First of all there are national party delegations which join the European political parties ( international parties or Europarties) which then create European political groups. These two first levels may way out in third although less official one at which political groups cooperate together in order to minimize the exploit of early(a) political groups or to build a common front against the other EU institutions much(prenominal) as the Council or the European Commission. Thus one could describe internal organization of the European Parliament as two and a half or three level transnational party system (see Figure 1.1).I.1. DEFINITIONSThe European party system is characterized by the complexity of nomenclature which ask to be clarified in order to understand the party organization. Starting from the first component of the structure. topic party delegations can be defined as entities within the transnational parties in the EP consisting of MEPs from the identical national party. Transnational parties are the group s of representatives within a given institution that typically come from the comparable party family. According to Lindberg et al., in the EP, these transnational parties are also comm merely referred to as (transnational) party groups. However, it has to be de noneed that these transnational parties, albeit they create transna tional political groups, they are not the equivalent of the latter. In most cases political groups are composed of more than one political party. Not every MEPs belongs to the party that creates the group unaffiliated members. Political groups are not allowed to take part in the campaign for the European elections and cannot be set up if the proposed membership consists of MEPs from only one member state. Functioning and organization of the European parties has its legal basis in the Regulation (EC) No 2004/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 November 2003 on the regulations governing political parties at European level and the line ups regarding their funding.I.2. TWO PRINCIPALS THEORYThe principal-agent theory is frequently used by the scholars to describe the relations among the actors involved in the EU policy-making process, occupyly institutions and members states. The central puzzle analyzed in this theory is that one actor (the principal) needs to delegate tasks and resources to another actor (the agent) who will take action on behalf of the principal but who has interests and objectives of his or her own. Agent cannot observe the actions of its principal, thus its give abilities are very limited. It creates a serious incentive problem and a necessity of the sanction mechanism to envision expected outcomes.Principal-agent interaction applies also to the European Parliament. There are two party principals that possess specific resources to shape the behavior of their MEPs. Quality of these resources determines the lick and strength of the principals. National parties (principal 1) can use their control of candidate reselection and their control of the process of European elections to influence whether an MEP is take to the parliament in the first place. European parties (principal 2), in turn, can use their control of resources and power within the parliament to influence whether an MEP is able to secure his or her poli cy and occupational group goals at once elected. What does the two-principal theory mean for the effectiveness of the European party system? What does it say about the interactions within the system?According to David Marquand, European party system, in order to be fully democratic and effective has to be based on Europe des partis where politics is structured through a party system, and not on Europe des patries where politics is structured around national identities and governments. It would guarantee a higher level of internal cohesiveness and secure the policy objectives. In the European Parliament, there is however a significant rack from the national parties which may urinate a strong impact on the last(a) decisions of one MEP or another. When the power of the EP is at stake, MEPs have strong incentive to take together to acquire more power relative to other EU institutions , to ensure a counterbalance. However, the national parties may be encouraged to keep more influe nce over their MEPs because of the growing legislative power of the EP. Hence, it can be argued that there will be an increased intervention by national parties to control the activities of their European representatives.The functioning of the EP depends to a corking extent on the interactions between two principals and the influence of one or/and the other. These interactions are, in turn, determined by a lot of factors. Among the others one can mention issue covered, circumstances, institutional context and strategies employ by the flusht groups. Different incentives offered by them evoke different behavior. Incentives for collective party organization can be common for both levels national and European, separate or may create a sort of tool chest of the incentives that are interpreted out of the box, when there is such a need.II. COMMON INCENTIVES FOR COLLECTIVE ORGANIZATION incorporated organization is one of the concept which can be applied to a lot of spheres of political and hearty science. It refers to the logic of collective action of Mancur Olson and its theory of groups. The main purpose of the collective organization is to reduce consummation costs of what can be achieved by joining the group whose members share the same interests. The most intelligible form of collective organization in political parties context is the league-building. According to John H. Aldrich, political parties are institutional solutions created by rational utility-maximizing legislators to reduce the transaction costs of collective decision-making and solve the internal collective action problems they face in the legislature. There are two main common incentives for collective organization reduction of transaction costs and solution for collective action problem. Building a coalition is a very meter-consuming and demanding process that includes the costs of putting together a proposal, identifying coalition partners and forging a compromise acceptable to a suffici ent volume. Going through all these stages every time a party looks for an ally is too risky and does not guarantee sufficient level of influence after all. The existence of political parties reduces these costs by allowing the actors concerned to pre-pack like-minded legislators and form more stable coalition patterns.Coalition-building solves also the problem of collective action in decision making process. Through organizing themselves into a mass party, legislators can receive a higher pay-off in terms of policy then they could achieve as individual legislators. Being a part of a majoritarian coalition is the only way to have luxuriant influence in order to pass a legislation that would secure the policy objectives. Every coalition, once built, has to be cohesive, otherwise it will not play its expected role. Voting behavior of the coalition members determines its power and effectiveness.Transnational character of the political groups, however, can easily impede the internal cohesiveness. There two groups of the reasons that can be mentioned. First one, having its sources in systemic differences as to the political culture, traditions, habits, mentalities, political scene stability (bi- or multipolar), level of dependence on national authorities, attachment to domestic parties, importance of national issues etc. Second one concerning individual features such as personality, knowledge about the issues concerned, language barrier which can delay the access to informal source of information as well as the informal inter-MEPs relations. The list of the reasons is not exhaustive one. It shows, however, the importance and influence of the national system on the behavior of the MEPs who have been brought up by each detail system.The question arises what can be done in order to ensure a satisfactory level of cohesiveness? What are the instruments that can be used to control voting behavior? The EU party system does not have such an advanced sanction mechanis m as it is the case in the domestic parliaments in Europe. Therefore, establishing party leadership seems to be the most effective, if not the only one, solution to compensate this deficiency. There are two possible scenarios that can be applied by the parties. According to the first one, parties can establish a transnational party together with like-minded legislators in order to reduce transaction costs of legislative decision-making. There is no centralized party group leadership and collective action problem of maintaining party unity can be solved through repeated actions. Alternative option expects the establishment of party group leadership with monitoring capabilities and disciplinary power. These two scenarios give the legislators incentives to form transnational parties at the European level in order to increase their influence over policy outcomes.Apart from having influence on policy-making policy seeking incentive, scholars distinguish two others re-election and offic e-seeking. Together, they form a sort of the incentives triangle which defines the collective party organization (see Figure 2.1). It depends on the particular system which incentive is more plausibly to be used. In the domestic parliamentary system re-election is oddly primary(prenominal) one due to a salient impact of national parties on future career of their MEPs. It has to be born in mind, that this incentives triangle is characterized by mutual dependence on the one hand and inequality on the other. According Thorsten Faas, their relations can be described clear lexicographic order. He underlines importance of re-election goal as the one that decide on the existence of the two others. Without re-election, there is incomplete office, nor policy. It confirms the importance of the domestic parliamentary system and preliminary incentive it offers. Once, however, re-election is achieved, it creates further incentives that can be applied at the EU level.III. INCENTIVES FOR COL LECTIVE PARTY ORGANIZATION AT THE EU LEVELTransnational parties are () a product of national parties, who created and sustain the transnational parties to serve their own policy goals in the European Parliament. Thus, it is in the national parties interest to ensure the cohesiveness in once created supranational platform. Each national party is unlikely to obtain its policy objectives by acting alone. They need an access to transnational level which would open a window of opportunity through which they could pass their goals. Transnational parties service of process national parties and MEPs, structure their behavior. These two levels of party organization are characterized by interdependence based on mutuality of interests and benefits. National party as an essential subcomponent of transnational party on the one hand. Transnational party as a useful platform and a source of behavior structure on the other.Apart from these inter-related incentives, dropping partially in Principal 1 and Principal 2 resources, one can mention other, taciturn only for MEPs once they have been elected (See II.2. Two principal theory Principal 2). The most important one is allocation of leadership position within the EP. company groups control important assets within the EP such as committee positions, rapporteurships for writing legislative reports, and plenary speaking time. The most salient reports are allocated to the most loyal MEPs. Another incentive, however less important, is the control of the parliamentary order of business by the MEPs. They do have an influence on what can be included in the agenda, but they cannot decide on whether one issue or another can be kept of the agenda. The larger party group is, the greater influence on allocation of leadership position and agenda control it has. Using the allocation position power as well as (limited) agenda control one can argue that European political groups are able to enforce party line and mobilize its members to uni fied voting.While analyzing incentives for collective party organization at the EU level, institutional context has to be mentioned. Behavior of the institutions and their members is to a great extent determined by inter-institutional competition. Each of them seeks to preserve its position on the institutional arena and ensure its influence on the issues concerned. In other words, the inter-institutional competition system is based on counterbalance mechanisms that foster the institutions pr even sot the dominant position of one of them. This is the case also for the European Parliament, whose power has been systematically enforcing by the treaties, moving the EP form its position of purely consultative body (Treaty of Rome) and to the one of an active player the decision-making process (veto power). The ordinary legislative procedure introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, entered into a force in 2009, makes the role of the EP even more significant. Collective organization within the EP as well as voting cohesiveness help the EP to reduce the importance of two other institutions, namely the Council and the Commission.Another level of the competition which is very present in the EP concern party groups. Inter-party group competition determines voting behavior within the groups increasing cohesiveness. It is in the interest of the political groups to ensure a strong position vis vis other groups. Following the general rule bigger can more, creating bigger and more influential platform enables the groups to be more competitive and to describe a counterbalance to the others. As S. Hix et al. argue, the incentive to form and maintain powerful transnational party organization is fundamentally related to political competition inside the European Parliament () It pays to be cohesive because this increases a partys chance of being on the winning side of a vote and thus to influence its nett outcome.IV. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INCENTIVES IN DOMESTIC PARLIAMENTS IN EUROPE AND IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMPARATIVE abridgmentAmong the consequences of the distinct nature of the nation state on the one hand and the European Union on the other (see Introduction, pp. 1-2) one can find differences between incentives for collective party organization accessible at both levels. The reasons maybe divided into groups which touch upon different aspects nature of the European election, re-election capabilities, sanction instruments, constitutional structure and general perception of political parties performance at both levels.Domestic parliaments are perceived as the ones that offer their deputies more incentives than it is the case of the European Parliament, where the role of the political parties is much less apparent.Reif and Schmitt coined the term of second-order national elections to underline the importance of the national issues in the election campaigns in Europe. One can also mention very low turnout, weak electoral connection between citizens and Eur opean legislators, no brand name at the EU level since candidates do not use a common European label, but the label of their national party. winning into account these factors, the nature of elections does not seem to provide an incentive to act within a cohesive party group that is as strong as in genuine national election.Internal functioning of the EP shows an important role played by the national electoral systems as well as strong a connection between the MEPs and their national parties. The national parties constitute the main amass actors in the European Parliament. There are lots of aspects justifying this statement. These are the national parties that nominate the candidates to the European elections. They decide also which of their MEPs will be returned to the European Parliament. National party leaderships have a dominant influence on the future career prospects of the MEPs, both within and beyond the EP. National parties decide which of their MEPs they will stick up f or key committee position and offices inside the parliament and also whether MEPs will be chosen as candidates for national legislative and executive office. There is a clear list of incentives and goal that may be achieved. The most important one is re-election. The lack of this particular incentive to offer at the EU level weakens significantly the position of transnational parties in comparison to their national counterparts. Level of the voting cohesiveness determines the effectiveness of the transnational groups once they are established. It decides if they are able or not to ensure political accountability and consistent decision-making.Domestic parliamentary systems have at their organization greater sanctions for the behavior contradictory to the party lines. Taking into account what national parties can offer, there is too much to lose if one decide not follow their instructions (cost and benefits analysis). One of the relevant instruments available at the domestic level is the confidence vote attached to a legislative proposal. It can be used by the governmental party or coalition in order to ensure (party) voting cohesion.On top of that, the cabinet, with its prerogatives in the legislative process, is formed along partisan lines and the portfolios are distributed by party leaders. It shows that political parties are crucial at all stages of the making of public policy.The sanctions mechanism within the European Parliament is developed enough to exert an effective influence on voting behavior of the MEPs. There are two instruments which has to be mentioned. Political groups can control their members through whips or by group coordinators in case of the committees. The second one at the inclination of the political groups is the ultimate sanction of expelling an individual MEP or national party delegation from the group. However, political groups make use of this possibility only in extreme cases.Decision of the expulsion has to be supported by a majority of all MEPs in the group and is only credible if expelling the party would not weaken the political group compared with its opponents in the parliament.Importance of the available instruments is limited by their kind of theoretical dimension. If we assume that the transnational parties are responsible for the growing cohesiveness within the political groups, the threat of use of the sanction itself should be sufficient in order to ensure an obedience of the MEPs. However, if these are the national parties which determine the voting behavior, these sanction instruments lose their raison dtre and should be regarded as rather simple provision.Differences between two levels concern to a large extent the constitutional structure. The one of the EU does not () resemble the structure of a parliamentary system.First of all, there is no traditional government to support, discredit, refer to identify with or oppose to. No executive which can enforce party unity via a vote of confid ence.Only possibility at the EPs disposal is the power to vote the European executive (the Commission) through vote of no confidence. However, the necessary majority (two-thirds majority of the votes cast, representing a majority of the component MEPs, art. 234 TFEU) is very awkward to achieve. Furthermore, the Commission is not recruited from a majority coalition within the EP.It has no power to dissolve the Parliament, even for the budgets rejection which would normally have happened in the national systems. One can say that both positive and negative incentives from the part of the executive are very limited. Nothing to be afraid of and nothing to strive for.Performance of European political groups is weakened by limited abilities of agenda control (in comparison to the domestic parliaments). No transnational party can use agenda control powers in order to keep policy issues which divide the party from arising in the legislative decision-making process () even if this particular party holds a sufficient majority of votes(see Section III, p. 7). It is the European Commission that has an exclusive right to initiative. The European Parliament can only submit the proposal for legislative act, which then is considered by the Commission. The same applies to the transnational parties in the Council. Thus, Lindberg et al., argue that partisan control of the legislative agenda is only possible if a political camp dominates all three legislative bodies in the EU, namely the Commission, the Council and the Parliament. Table 1 Party effects on legislative decision-makingNational partiesTransnational partiesElectoral arena Selection of representativesEuropean ParliamentYesNoCouncilYesNoCommissionYesNoLegislative arena Legislative organizationEuropean Parliament multiformMixedCouncilNoNoCommissionNoNoIntra-institutional decision-makingEuropean ParliamentYesYesCouncilMixedMixedCommissionNoNoIntra-institutional decision-makingMixedYes (preliminary evidence)Source B. Lindb erg, A. Rasmussen, A. Warntjen, Party politics as coarse? The role of political parties in EU legislative decision-making, Journal of European Public Policy, Volume 15, replication 8, 2008, p. 1114.V. DETERMINANTS OF THE VOTING COHESIVENESS INSIDE THE EPDifferent factors that determine the voting behavior inside the EP refer us to the theory of two principals mentioned in the second part (see pages 3-4). Which of them has a greater impact on how the MEPs vote national parties of transnational groups? What does prevail national loyalty or partisan alignments? Do they necessarily oppose to each other? One can assume that MEPs take their decision being well conscious and fully aware of the context of the decisions, their content as well as their consequences. However, a significant part of them are being taken without this knowledge and rationally based analysis. Instead of it, other factors influence the MEPs and their final decision. Three of them seem to be the most important.Firs t, personal relations among the MEPs established as a result of socialization. It concerns especially those first-time elected deputies who are not very familiar with organizational structure of the EP. They are often forced to rely on somebody else while taking the decision. Somebody who, for different reasons, they decide to pull while taking decision. Second, content of the issue discussed and its impact on a vote. If the outcome of the decision is specially important from a countrys perspective, one could expect that MEP to be well informed about the issue. Then fortune that he or she will vote in accordance to the national party line is higher, either. Third, time the decision is taken. One can argue that MEPs are more likely to vote in line with their European party/political group when the leadership positions have not been allocated yet. In other words, it is difficult to apply the well know rule of stick and carrot if the carrot does no longer exist. disrespect frequent criticism of the lack of strength of the EP party groups, it is shown that they achieve relatively high and rising levels of cohesion.However, there is no clear answer on whether it is mainly the transnational or the national parties that act as the principals of the MEPs.At least three observations can be made to show the relations between them. First, national political parties make up the European parties strategically choose to vote together and impose discipline on their MEPs even when their preferences diverge. Doing so, they want to secure their long term collective policy goaland not necessarily the contiguous outcome of particular vote.Second, MEPs rarely vote against the European party line. Mostly because a high level of consensus between European political groups and national parties rarely forces them to make that choice. Third however, if the conflict between two principals appears they will chose the national one. One can say that MEPs are ultimately controlled by th eir national parties rather than European political groups.Importance of the national actors in determining the cohesion of the European parties depends on how nearly nation parties follow Parliamentary debates and how often the offer guidance to their own members. The national parties are more likely to be directly involved when they are opposed to the group vote or when the issue is of particular national concern.Voting against the majority within the political group does not simply pay if the rate is not high enough. The same applies for the roll-call voting where votes (Yes, No, Abstain) are published in the parliaments official minutes.Votes that are usually taken by roll call concerns decision of rather political nature (not technical one). It gives an extra incentive to show loyalty to the European political groups.Existing studies of roll-call voting confirm this statement showing that MEPs are likely to vote along transnational party lines than national lineswhen such a me thod is applied.though the Parliament is organized