In the last few years, the European integration process has increasingly resorted to flexible mechanisms of co-operation and decision-making, involving only a limited number of European Union (EU) Member States. The economic and financial crisis itself - and above all the response of the EU to the crisis - has undoubtedly favoured the trend. These ongoing asymmetric mechanisms deeply challenge the supranational architecture upon which the EU experience is based, determining a major change in the formal role and powers of both the European and national institutions. In particular, the European Parliament is incapable of adapting its internal functioning to the asymmetric schemes. In order to contrast these trends, some hypotheses of reform have been formulated, aiming either at building a new institution, a sort of Euro-Parliament; or at adapting the internal organisation of the EP to ongoing asymmetric tendencies limiting the voting rights of EPs. The essay challenges both these hypothesis, assuming that responding to the increasing asymmetries of the EU by making the existing institutions, above all the European Parliament, more asymmetric, would consistently endanger the cohesion of the Union and threaten the good functioning of its governing bodies. Rather, the approach should be based upon a re-consideration of the overall representative circuit upon which the EU is based. This implies that an even more asymmetric EU will have to rely on its traditional channels of parliamentary representation: what will need to change is not related to the nature or the format of parliamentary representation, but rather to its operative patterns, which should count on strengthened cooperation among parliaments in order to accommodate asymmetric tendencies in the EU governance with flexible forms of interaction in the scrutiny of such procedures.

Towards an asymmetric European Union, without an asymmetric European Parliament / Griglio, Elena; Lupo, Nicola. - 20:(2014).

Towards an asymmetric European Union, without an asymmetric European Parliament

GRIGLIO, ELENA;LUPO, NICOLA
2014

Abstract

In the last few years, the European integration process has increasingly resorted to flexible mechanisms of co-operation and decision-making, involving only a limited number of European Union (EU) Member States. The economic and financial crisis itself - and above all the response of the EU to the crisis - has undoubtedly favoured the trend. These ongoing asymmetric mechanisms deeply challenge the supranational architecture upon which the EU experience is based, determining a major change in the formal role and powers of both the European and national institutions. In particular, the European Parliament is incapable of adapting its internal functioning to the asymmetric schemes. In order to contrast these trends, some hypotheses of reform have been formulated, aiming either at building a new institution, a sort of Euro-Parliament; or at adapting the internal organisation of the EP to ongoing asymmetric tendencies limiting the voting rights of EPs. The essay challenges both these hypothesis, assuming that responding to the increasing asymmetries of the EU by making the existing institutions, above all the European Parliament, more asymmetric, would consistently endanger the cohesion of the Union and threaten the good functioning of its governing bodies. Rather, the approach should be based upon a re-consideration of the overall representative circuit upon which the EU is based. This implies that an even more asymmetric EU will have to rely on its traditional channels of parliamentary representation: what will need to change is not related to the nature or the format of parliamentary representation, but rather to its operative patterns, which should count on strengthened cooperation among parliaments in order to accommodate asymmetric tendencies in the EU governance with flexible forms of interaction in the scrutiny of such procedures.
2014
multi-speed integration in the EU; asymmetric mechanisms of decision-making among Member States; enhanced cooperation; opt-out; new European economic governance; democratic legitimacy of the EU; parliamentary democracy; European Parliament; inter-parliamentary cooperation; euro-national parliamentary system; parliamentary scrutiny.
Towards an asymmetric European Union, without an asymmetric European Parliament / Griglio, Elena; Lupo, Nicola. - 20:(2014).
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
SOG Working Papers WP20-2014 Griglio-Lupo-DEF.pdf

Open Access

Licenza: Creative commons
Dimensione 342.65 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
342.65 kB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri
Pubblicazioni consigliate

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11385/147196
 Attenzione

Attenzione! I dati visualizzati non sono stati sottoposti a validazione da parte dell'ateneo

Citazioni
  • Scopus ND
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
  • OpenAlex ND
social impact