Does differentiated integration weaken parliamentary involvement? Evidence from the European Union's interparliamentary conferences
| Author | Thomas Winzen |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14651165221104907 |
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Does differentiated
integration weaken
parliamentary involvement?
Evidence from the
European Union’s
interparliamentary
conferences
Thomas Winzen
Institute of Social Sciences, Heinrich Heine University
Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
Abstract
Does differentiated integration undermine the motivation of parliamentarians from less
integrated member states to become involved in European Union affairs? Focusing on
the European Union’s new interparliamentary conferences in economic governance,
and justice and home affairs, this study examines whether voluntary and involuntary
as well as comprehensive and partial differentiation influence parliamentary involvement,
measured as participation in interparliamentary conferences. Based on new data and
Coarsened Exact Matching, the results indicate that the effect of differentiation depends
on its political origins and design. Only voluntary and comprehensive differentiation
depress parliamentary involvement. The results can be seen as favourable regarding
the legitimacy of differentiation and compatible with the European Union’s ambition
to limit the institutional implications of differentiation. They also ind icate a targeted par-
liamentary response to differentiated integration.
Keywords
Differentiated integration, national parliaments, interparliamentary conferences
Corresponding author:
Thomas Winzen, Institute of Social Sciences, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1,
40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
Email: winzen@hhu.de
Article
European Union Politics
2023, Vol. 24(1) 42–62
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/14651165221104907
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Introduction
National parliamentary involvement has long been considered important for the European
Union (EU). It has been argued that the more national parliamentarians are involved in
the EU, the more they could communicate EU affairs to the public, encourage informed
public debate, and perhaps even enhance popular support (Auel et al., 2018; Auel and
Raunio, 2014; Rauh and De Wilde, 2018). Parliamentary involvement might, however,
be weakened by the differentiated integration (hereinafter referred to as DI or differenti-
ation) of the EU, defined as the exemption and exclusion of member states from selected
policy domains (Holzinger and Schimmelfennig, 2012; Schimmelfennig et al., 2015).
Differentiation has often been considered positive for European integration as it helps
overcome cross-national ideological and capacity differences (de Neve, 2007; Kölliker,
2006; Schimmelfennig and Winzen, 2020; Stubb, 1996), but does it undermine the
motivation of parliamentarians from less integrated member states to become involved
in EU affairs?
I examine this question with a focus on the participation of members of national par-
liaments (hereinafter referred to as MPs or parliamentarians) in the EU’s interparliamen-
tary conferences (IPCs). The EU has created IPCs in economic governance, justice and
home affairs, and foreign and security policy. These biannual, formal meetings allow
MPs to interact with each other and EU actors (Cooper, 2017b; Herranz-Surrallés,
2022; Janc
̌ić, 2016; Kreilinger, 2013, 2018; Schade and Stavridis, 2021). IPCs are not
crucial for decision making but enable parliamentarians to gain information.
Analytically, they are an opportunity to understand the incentives of MPs in the
context of DI. While IPCs exist in domains that feature differentiation in various forms
and for different countries, their membership is not differentiated. We can thus assess
the relationship between differentiation and parliamentary participation.
I argue that the effect of differentiation on IPC participation depends on whether dif-
ferentiation preserves incentives to participate. This in turn hinges on the political origins
and institutional design of differentiation. I start from the premise that IPCs primarily
serve as an informational function for national parliaments (e.g. Kreilinger, 2018;
Lipps, 2020; Miklin, 2013), but also acknowledge that they might have an additional
social purpose in the EU’s‘inter-parliamentary field’(Crum and Fossum, 2009). I
expect that parliamentarians, whose countries are exempted from EU policies and
who, therefore, face weaker information needs and social expectations, participate less
in IPCs. However, this effect is only likely in countries with voluntary and comprehen-
sive differentiations, such as the British (before leaving the EU), Danish, and Swedish
Euro Area opt-outs. It might also prove stronger for parliamentarians than parliamentary
bureaucracies who participate in IPCs as well. In contrast, if differentiation is involuntary
or covers the remits of IPCs only partly, the incentives to participate remain largely
unaffected.
Empirically, the analysis relies on new participation data on the Interparliamentary
Conference on Stability, Economic Coordination and Governance in the European
Union (SECG IPC) and the Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny Group on Europol (JPSG).
The EU’s third IPC on foreign and security policy is not included. There is only one
Winzen 43
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