Week 7

Question 1

How does the Netherlands apply european law and international law

Answer 1

*European law: Apply European law in a monist way (whatever is passed at the EU level is automatically part of the Dutch legal system). Thus, the constitution has no authority on the applicability of European law
*International law: apply international treaties in an incorporist way - “the only requirement for international provisions to be judicially enforceable is that they should have direct effect according to Article 94 of the Dutch Constitution”

Question 2

How does the Germany apply european law and international law

Answer 2

*Apply European law in an incorporist way: those in Germany can rely on European law directly based on Article 23 of the German Constitution
*Apply international law in a transformist way:
Treaty law is transformed into national law and thus, German citizens do not rely on international treaties as such, but they rely on domestic acts that transform those treaties into national law

Question 3

What is strategic Europeanization?

Answer 3

*National executives try to ‘Europeanize’ certain topics they can’t get through at home
*They will use European legislation to enact laws they can’t pass at home, so they pass it in the European Parliament, and then it is applicable in the home country

Question 4

Dual democracy legitimacy arguments

Answer 4

• One argument: As European citizens vote directly for the European Parliament, the legitimacy of the EU comes from the popular-voted EP
• Another argument: Members of the Council and the European Council are either responsible to their citizens directly or to their national parliaments (either way, they are responsible to their countries), and so the democratic legitimacy of the EU comes from the fact that national governments (which are representatives of these democracies) are members of the Council and the European Council
• Places emphasis on decisions agreeing between national parliaments and the EU level decisions.
  • Basically hold member state accountable to their own parliaments

Question 5

Parliamentary vs semi-presidential systems:

Answer 5

*Parliamentary system: head of the executive (PM) enjoys the confidence of parliament, in which parliament is the only directly elected organ, and the government only has legitimacy because parliament supports it
* Semi-presidential system: the President is voted on his own mandate by the people (directly elected), and the PM is voted by parliament. Thus, President has his own source of legitimacy

Question 6

Difference between monism and incorporism

Answer 6

• Difference between monism and incorporism is not how international law is applied (as in both systems it is applied directly), but why it is applied
• Monism: international law is applied because it is the higher source of law. No extra steps or anything, once the international law is ratified it is applied in the country
  *Incorporism: international law is applied directly on the basis of the constitution. Somewhere in the constitution it says so about rank, obligations, rights, etc.

Question 7

What is the Council?

Answer 7

*Responsible for legislation and budget, and is the core legislative organ of the EU
* Art 16: two requirements to attend Council meetings - someone who has ministerial level and can bind the government of the member state

Question 8

What is the European Council

Answer 8

*Most important decisions made by EC as they decide on guidelines and priorities and suggest to the EP who the Commission’s President should be
*Composed of heads of state, heads of government, and head of the Commission
* With countries that have a semi-Presidential system, both the head of state and the head of government have enforcement and policy mandates, and so they may have different priorities and views, and so they must work together and reach compromises in EU matters

Question 9

The European task of national parliaments

Answer 9

• Art 12 TEU: national parliaments contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union
• (a) through being informed by the EU
  National parliaments get sent EU legislation and decisions directly
• (b) by seeing to it that the principle of subsidiarity is respected
  –Subsidiarity: EU can only use its competences if the problem can be better addressed by it/the national governments cannot address the problem as effectively as the EU can
  –National parliaments are asked to scrutinize every proposal by asking if the legislative proposal of the EU is in line with the subsidiarity principle
• (c) by taking part in evaluation and oversight of Eurojust and Europol; (d) by taking part in the Treaty revision procedures; (e) by being notified of applications for accession; (f) by taking part in COSAC

Question 10

What is Parliament’s scrutiny reserve?

Answer 10

*National parliament actively taking part in telling the government what to do at the EU level
* An information instrument
* When parliament invokes a scrutiny reserve, they must invoke it on a specific item. As soon as it is reserved, the minister for the country must first tell the council that they are not participating right now on the item because they are informing and discussing with parliament, and then the minister must inform and discuss with parliament, and as long as discussions with parliament continues, they do not take part in the meetings and discussions at the EU level.
* Thus, representatives at the EU level for the country should abstain from voting until parliament has scrutinized the potential decision and given their opinion on it.
*However, EU law cannot be blocked by scrutiny reserves
* Must also check if the scrutiny reserve has a legally binding mandate or not

Question 11

Negotiating mandate/voting instructions

Answer 11

• Non-binding traditional resolutions; semi-binding mandates
  *Legally binding negotiating mandate: parliament giving a mandate to the ministers on how to negotiate in the EU. Parliament gets together and decides what representative at EU is allowed to say. Idea of constitution - no one is allowed to go before EU without parliament allowing them what to say.
  *Can be seen as parliament sort of having some control over the executive in this sense

Question 12

Parliament approval rights

Answer 12

• Decisions reserved to parliament for their approval

Question 13

Parliament procedural strategies

Answer 13

• Follow up on EC and Council meetings
• Engage in rapporteurs: EU sends a few people to each member state parliaments to figure out what’s going on in regard to Europe

Question 14

What are the different ways member state parliaments engage in EU policymaking/influencing

Answer 14

*Policy shaper
*Government watchdog
*Public forum
*Expert
*European player

Question 15

Policy-shaper

Answer 15

*Influencing national ‘agents’ ex ante – meaning that the national parliament tries to influence EU policy by actively telling government what to do

Question 16

Government watchdog

Answer 16

*Scrutinizing them ex post – it isn’t proper for parliament to tell the government what to do at the EU as the executive is the main player in foreign policy
* So, executive does all the work and parliament heavily scrutinizes what they do
*Actively asks for meeting minutes, reports on what happened, agenda, etc.

Question 17

Public forum

Answer 17

• Widely communicating your position ex ante and ex post
• Parliament tells the voters where they stand on European issues, and thus have their audience as the voters, not the government

Question 18

Expert

Answer 18

*Convincing everyone (early) with arguments
*Parliamentary bodies create reports regarding EU politics, and thus convince the audience with expertise, not politics

Question 19

European player

Answer 19

*Influencing the EU and member states (early) by directly speaking with the EP, EC, Council, European stakeholders before the proposals are set (when it’s too late). As such, national parliaments that try to act as the “European Player” try to influence EU policy, tells the EU what to do, and mainly wants their own parliamentarian policy preferences made into EU law

Question 20

What is populism?

Answer 20

*An ‘essentially contested concept’ in which the core is ‘the people rule’
*Populist politicians claim that the people rule through them (by direct, unmediated support such as active social media)
* Strong leadership style with a focus on simplicity, directness, evocation of emotions, and capitalizing on distrust
* The ideology of populist’s centers around the common people vs the elite
* The populist claims they will be a representative of the people against the elite
* Concludes the contract for the people and carries out the social contract on behalf of the people
*Engages in narrative discourse, often invoking popular sovereignty (only the people should rule)
* At the core, populism is: a thin-centered ideology that considers society to be separated into two groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite.’ And which argues that politics should be an expression of the general will of the people
*The general will is aimed at the common good and the populist claims they know what the general will is

Question 21

Muller’s view of populism

Answer 21

*Us vs them: the sovereign people vs them
* The people are a moral, symbolic unity (although, an imagined community) that should be the sovereign but ‘we the people’ are existentially under threat
*Populists also have a claim to exclusive representation
* Hence, they are anti-pluralist and claim ‘we alone represent the [true] people’ while all opposition to us is illegitimate and seeks to undermine us
*Prefer direct representation
*Further, populists claim that the common good is obvious and they know what this obvious common good is that the people infallibly want
* In essence, populism is a contested concept, in which the populists claim to exclusively represent the imagined, morally superior people whose will supersedes all, and this is done through radical ‘democracy’ in which all opposition is illegitimate