A mapping of recent trends in interparliamentary cooperation within the EU

Abstract

While the contacts taking place within the officially established interparliamentary conferences (COSAC, article 13 Conference and CFSP Conference) have been subject to relatively intense discussions among academics, the question of the interparliamentary cooperation outside of these Conferences has been far less studied. Indeed, one can observe initiatives from both National parliaments at a horizontal level and initiatives from the European Parliament and National parliaments in a vertical dimension. For instance, National parliaments, on the one hand, have taken the initiative to organize thematic informal interparliamentary meetings (among others the Tweede Kamer in Brussels in January 2015 on the role of National parliaments in the EU or the French National Assembly on the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in September 2014) or they have formed geographical groups as for example the Visegrad group. On the other hand, top-down and bottom-up relationships have been established between the EP and National Parliaments outside of the Conferences for interparliamentary cooperation. The EP regularly invites National MPs to participate in meetings in Brussels whereas MEPs are invited to come to the Parliament of their country of origins. The presented article intends to shed light on these less visible dynamics as well as on their recent evolution.