Conclusions: the European Parliament – coming of age

• Published in: Journal of legislative studies 2018-01, Vol.24 (1), p.173-178
• Main Author: Westlake, Martin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Age; Declarations; Euroscepticism; Governance; Innovations; Legislatures; Parliaments; Political parties; Political systems; Speeches; Transnationalism
• ISSN: 1357-2334; 1743-9337
• DOI: 10.1080/13572334.2018.1444632

Has the European Parliament come of age, as some have argued, or does it not yet enjoy an optimal panoply of powers, as others insist? Do such innovations as the Spitzenkandidaten procedure and Jean-Claude Juncker's insistence on a reduced and targeted legislative output represent fresh and significant departures or are they, rather, simply gradations on familiar themes? What should be made of the penultimate European Parliament President Martin Schulz's determination to transform the parliament into the arena for the great and the good to make their speeches and declarations? Was that a passing initiative or the start of a grand tradition? And what should be made of the recent creation, by the parliament, of its own European Parliamentary Research Service? Is this a sign of a coming of age (remembering that the United States' Congressional Research Service only came into being in 1914)? Does it have implications for the ever-delicate balance between the powers of individual members, with their growing numbers of staffers, and those of the groups? Does it indicate that the parliament is becoming steadily more like the United States' House of Representatives in terms of style and powers? Will some of the 73 'spare' seats freed up by the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union ultimately be devoted to the creation of transnational lists and representatives and what would such a measure mean for the parliament's evolution? Will the European Union's party-political system continue to develop along classic cleavages, or could the rise of more coherent Eurosceptical forces create new cleavages more 'appropriate to a continent'? Will the Spitzenkandidaten procedure be repeated in 2019, and what would that mean for the European Union's future constitutional development (Westlake, 2017)? Such a rapid-fire list of questions shows that the European Parliament is still, to say the least, a moving target, if not, as many would argue, a still-evolving institution in a still-evolving system of multi-level governance. There is, therefore, still plenty to study. Or is there?