What influence did the European Parliament have in the Brexit negotiations? How did Brexit affect the distribution of power inside the European Parliament? In this post, Edoardo Bressanelli, Nicola Chelotti and Wilhelm Lehmann analyse the role of the European Parliament in managing Brexit

Bressanelli, Edoardo

Chelotti, Nicola

Lehmann, Wilhelm

English

LSE Research Online

Edoardo Bressanelli Nicola Chelotti Wilhelm Lehmann April 12th, 2021The role of the European Parliament in managingBrexit1 comment | 22 sharesEstimated reading time: 10 minutesWhat in uence did the European Parliament have in the Brexit negotiations?How did Brexit affect the distribution of power inside the EuropeanParliament? In this post, Edoardo Bressanelli, Nicola Chelotti and WilhelmLehmann analyse the role of the European Parliament in managing Brexit.Politics and Governance has recently published a Thematic Issue on theconsequences of Brexit for EU institutions, such as the Council of the EU andthe Court of Justice, and transnational actors like interest groups or  nancialorganisations. The Issue has shown that – while Brexit has been generallyregarded as a threat to integration or a trigger of disintegration – the Unionhas been able to prepare itself for the departure of the UK.We can speculate on the drivers of this institutional adaptation. The EU mayseek to protect itself from the ‘malign’ in uence of a soon-to-be third country.It may fear the organizational consequences of withdrawal and seekminimizing potential disruptions. It could be guided by the willingness to‘punish’ disintegration and prevent further exits. Whatever the reason, one ofthe key  ndings of the project has been the capacity of the EU to adapt (sofar) to the challenges posed by Brexit.This conclusion stands also for the European Parliament (EP). In our article,we analyse two aspects related to Brexit and the EP:  rst, the role played bythe EP in the negotiations of the Withdrawal Agreement and the EU-UK Tradeand Cooperation Agreement; second, the in uence of British MEPs in theParliament during the Brexit period, from the referendum to Brexit day (June2016–January 2020).CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2020 – Source: EPThe EP and the Brexit negotiationsAccording to Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, the EP gets involvedessentially at the end of the negotiation process between the EU and thedeparting state – when it has to give its consent to the withdrawal agreementthat the two parties have signed.However, in the case of the Withdrawal Agreement between the EU and theUK, the EP was able to increase its institutional powers and obtain a voicethroughout the entire process. Not only was the Parliament kept regularly andthoroughly informed by the European Commission; it managed to participatein the key stages of the negotiations, becoming a ‘quasi-negotiator’.From an organizational point of view, Brexit activities were mainly controlledby a close and senior group, the Brexit Steering Group, chaired by GuyVerhofstadt and composed of  ve political groups (all but the more right-wingEurosceptic groups). The restricted composition of this body allowed the EPto engage in the political strategizing of the negotiations. It worked veryclosely with the EU Council and, particularly, with the Commission’s TaskForce.What in uence did the EP have in the negotiations? As the EP, the Council andthe Commission had very similar preferences, it is di cult to detect itprecisely. In any event, the EP mainly focussed on citizens’ rights, stronglyinsisting on issues such as applications for permanent residency, workpermits or travel regulations.The next round of negotiations over the future relationship formally started inMarch and was completed on Christmas Eve 2020, when the EU-UK Trade andCooperation Agreement was signed. Despite a more favourable legal basis,the EP remained quite peripheral in the construction of the EU position.Coordination between the EP and the Commission now concerned a muchlarger array of policies, hence the joint strategizing element was more di cultto attain.We argue that this is (in part) related to how the EP organised itself for suchnegotiations. The Steering Group was contested within the EP, with anincreasing number of actors asking for more transparent and broaderparticipation. It was thus replaced by the UK Coordination Group, whichincorporated MEPs from all groups (including the Eurosceptics); and the EPcommittees – largely side-lined in the earlier negotiations – were now given amuch greater role. The broader composition of the UK Coordination Groupand the greater involvement of committees reduced the political clout of theEP, making its involvement more ancillary.From a substantive point of view, the EP aimed to reach an ambitiouseconomic partnership with the UK, which would require the latter to remainaligned to EU rules in  elds such as environment, competition, or labourstandards. This stance was not particularly new (the EP had alreadyexpressed it during the earlier negotiations) nor particularly controversialwithin the EU. However, differently from the Withdrawal Agreementnegotiations, the EP struggled to identify its key priorities, limiting its capacityto leave a signi cant mark on the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Arelated problem was that in several committees MEPs were just trying toretain the status quo ante, not realizing the radically new situation.British members in the EP: between Auld Lang Syne and gleeThe EP not only tried to in uence the negotiations but, well before Brexitoccurred, it sidelined, to a large extent, the departing British members from itslegislative work. The British delegation was traditionally considered ratherin uential within the EP. For instance, in their analysis of the 2009-14 period,Simon Hix and Giacomo Benedetto concluded that UK MEPs authored morereports than the MEPs from every other member state except Germany.We assessed whether this conclusion was still valid in the period followingthe 2016 referendum when the UK members could start feeling the costs oftheir soon-to-be departure. Their parliamentary colleagues were more hesitantto attribute them a position of responsibility. Also, allocating senior roles andimportant legislative dossiers to the UK members could be di cult, asrelationships with the UK had soured when the latter decided to leave theUnion.Empirically, we observed the Brexit impact on the UK delegation by mappingchanges in the positions of power allocated to its members over time. First,we looked at the number of senior positions obtained by the UK delegation atthe beginning of a new parliament and at mid-term, when the EP top o ces(e.g. positions in the bureau, committee chairs) are reshu ed.Figure 1: British members and top jobs in the EPAs Figure 1 shows, there has been a downward trend in the number of o cepositions obtained by the UK since the second half of the 2004–2009Parliament, when the UK controlled a total of 13 positions, including two EPVice-Presidents. The most dramatic fall is observed, unsurprisingly, in July2019, at the beginning of EP9. The British delegation was only allocated  vetop jobs: two committee chairs and three committee vice-chairs, with noBritish member represented in the bureau. Clearly, EP leadership was hesitantto assign an institutional role to any British member.Second, we made a similar mapping exercise for the allocation ofparliamentary reports, focusing on the more important legislative reports,agreed through the ordinary legislative procedure. We observe that the UKdelegation used to do better than most other national delegations, with theclear exception of the German one. However, UK members elected in 2014appear to have signi cantly underperformed when compared to theirpredecessors, having obtained only 4.6 per cent of the legislative reportswhile, in the previous parliaments, the share of reports has always beenhigher than 10 per cent. In part, this was due to the strong results of the UKIPparty.Figure 2: Legislative reports and the UK delegationSource: Data on legislation collected by Reh et al 2020. Note: DE: Germany;ES: Spain; FR: France; IT: Italy; PL: Poland; UK: United KingdomOur analysis has shown that the process of Brexit affected the distribution ofpower inside the EP, limiting the institutional and policy-making role of the UKrepresentatives even well before Brexit day. It has thus brought furtherevidence about the capacity of the EP to protect its institutional role and turfwhen facing adverse conditions.This post represents the views of the author(s) and not those of the Brexitblog, nor of the LSE. Share this:• •About the authorPosted In: European politics | Featured1 CommentsEdoardo Bressanelli is ‘Montalcini’ Assistant Professor in PoliticalScience at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, and aVisiting Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London.Edoardo BressanelliNicola Chelotti is Lecturer in Diplomacy and International Governance atLoughborough University London.Nicola ChelottiWilhelm Lehmann is Visiting Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre forAdvanced Studies of the European University Institute, Florence.Wilhelm Lehmann

The role of the European Parliament in managing Brexit

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The role of the European Parliament in managing Brexit

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