Parliament and Europe

This book presents an alternative view to implicit and explicit assumptions on the relation between Parliament and Europe in contemporary Europe. It is common to assume European integration to diminish the influence of national parliaments, and the European Parliament not to possess sufficient competencies. Alternatively, this volume rather aims at demonstrating that the relation between Parliament and Europe is a dynamic one in several respects and that it is shaped crucially by political rhetoric, the parliamentary style of politics being based on “government by speaking” (Macaulay) .
The books starting point is to take Parliament and Europe as political concepts which are currently objects of change and struggle. “A new world requires a new science of politics” − Alexis de Tocqueville’s famous words from 1835 can also be applied to the new world of the European Union. Departing from this idea, the book aims at enabling a dynamic view on the relationship between Parliament and Europe by rendering the conceptual and political struggles as well as the dynamic and changing interrelations between Parliaments and Europe more visible and accessible.