El desarrollo de las prácticas interparlamentarias: el caso del control parlamentario de Europol

Abstract

Tesis doctoral inédita leída en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Derecho, Departamento de Ciencia Política y Relaciones Internacionales. Fecha de lectura: febrero de 2015The increasing role of national parliaments at EU level points in the direction of greater possibilities for the development of interparliamentary practices, particularly for parliamentary control purposes. However, research has paid little attention to the way these interparliamentary practices develop and work in practice. This thesis studies the interparliamentary practices developed in the context of the parliamentary control of Europol, the European Police Agency. Europol has evolved from its original institutional design as an intergovernmental body established by an international convention into a supranational agency fully integrated into the EU. Against this background, this research looks at the evolution of the parliamentary control of Europol in this process as a case of institutional development within EU representative-democratic institutions and discusses the relationship between integration (as institutional incorporation) and democratisation. Originally the European Parliament (EP) had almost no scrutiny role regarding Europol. However, in 2010 Europol became an EU agency and the EP acquired, among other things, some degree of control over the budget of Europol. On the other hand, the Lisbon Treaty provides for the political monitoring of Europol to be done by national parliaments and the European Parliament together (TFEU Art.88). Provisions of the Lisbon Treaty has not yet been implemented but changes in the parliamentary practices have already taken place in preparation for the new modality in which both national parliaments and the EP will be involved. Given this background, the key question is how is the involvement of national parliaments and the EU in the parliamentary control of Europol best balanced? In this regards this thesis provides insights in the relative salience of interparliamentary coordination as compared to a strengthened role for the EP in the process of institutional incorporation of Europol