(Paper N.

2 23 January 2012 please do not cite without permission)

BEYOND THE PARLIAMENTARIZATION OF

THE EUROPEAN UNION:
THE INSTITUTIONAL CONSEQUENCES OF
THE LISBON TREATY

By Sergio Fabbrini
Sergio Fabbrini is professor of Political Science and International Relations and director of the School of Government at
the LUISS Guido Carli in Rome, where he holds a Jean Monnet Chair. He was the Editor of the Italian Journal of
Political Science from 2004 to 2009 and Director of the University of Trento School of International Studies from
2006 to 2009. He is Recurrent Visiting Professor of Comparative and International Politics at the University of
California at Berkeley. His recent publications include: Compound Democracies: Why the United States and Europe
Are Becoming Similar, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, revised edition and America and Its Critics. Vices and
Virtues of the Democratic Hyperpower, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2008.

Abstract
The articles argues that the Lisbon Treaty has made implausible any strategy finalized to transform the EU in a
parliamentary federation. In fact, the Lisbon Treaty has formalized an institutional architecture based on a quadrilateral
decision-making system, with the institutions of the quadrilateral informed by a principle of interlocking separation. In
this system, the EP role is to balance and check the other institutions, not to form a government. However, this
decision-making system does not apply to foreign and financial policies that have remained strictly intergovernmental.
Because of the decision-making power acquired by the European Council in particular in those two crucial policies, the
future of the multilateral nature of the EU as formalized by the Lisbon Treaty will depend on the capacity of the EP to
extend its balancing and checking role also in those policies.
Keywords: European Union, Lisbon Treaty, Supranational Democracy, Parliamentarization, Checks and Balances.
WordsText:7,187

Introduction
May the European Union (EU) be parliamentarized thus becoming a coherent parliamentary
federation? There is a vast literature, in the EU studies, arguing, first, that the EU is already a quasiparliamentary system and, second, that its popular legislature (the European Parliament or EP)
should be strengthened both in its governmental role (having a direct influence in the formation of
the European Commission) and legislative role (having a direct power in initiating the legislative
process). This strengthening of the EP is considered since the 1970s (Marquand 1979) as a
condition for solving the democratic deficit that has negatively affected the development of the EU.
The article will answer to the question advancing a different argument. Taking into account the
institutional architecture emerging from the Lisbon Treaty, and on the basis of a comparative
institutional analysis, it will argue that the EU has indeed gone beyond the parliamentary
federations model, having acquired institutional features that make it more similar to a system of
separation of powers, although with significant cultural ambiguity and consistent exceptions in
foreign and financial policies. If the EU is not and cannot become a parliamentary federation, then
what is the role for the EP? The answer is the following: the Lisbon Treaty has created an
institutional architecture that incentives the EP both to balance the legislative institution
representing the member states governments (the Council of Ministers, then called the Council of
the Union and finally the Council, as hereafter it will be named) and to check the operation of the
executive institutions (the Commission and the European Council). The article is organized as
follows. In the first section, it will discuss the institutional architecture emerged from the Lisbon
Treaty with its ambiguities and exceptions. In the second section, it will discuss the
parliamentarizations strategy of the EU, with the aim of showing the weakness of both its
institutional premises and normative assessment. Finally, it will derive the conclusion that the EP
should coherently exercise its checking and balancing role, extending it also to those policies the
governments have kept under their control.

I. The post-Lisbon Treaty EU

I.1. The institutional framework of the Lisbon Treaty

The Lisbon Treaty1 has formalized the institutional architecture developed within and
outside the previous treaties. The EP and the Council have been recognized as the two chambers of
the EU legislature, thanks to the recognition of the codecision procedure as the ordinary legislative
procedure for the large majority of EU deliberations (TFEU, Art. 289). At the same time the
European Council, with its president elected by the latters members for 2,5 years and renewable
once for the same length of time, has been recognized as a proper executive institution, due to its
role in defining the strategies of the Union and in representing the latter in international forum. In
fact, the European Council should define the general political directions and priorities of the
Union (TEU, Art. 15.1) and the president of the European Council should ensure the external
representation of the Union on issues concerning its common foreign and security policy although
without prejudice to the powers of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and
Security Policy (or HR) (TEU, Art. 15.6). In fact, the Treaty has also institutionalized the role of
the HR, who has to be nominated by the European Council acting by a qualified majority, with the
agreement of the President of the Commission (TEU, Art. 18), with the role of permanent chair of
the Foreign Affairs Council (while the other Councils configurations will continue to be chaired by
the ministers of the member state holding the rotating presidency) and Vice-President of the
Commission.
Thus, the European Council and the Council have been institutionally and functionally
distinguished. As the Treaty states (TEU, Art. 15.1), the European Council shall not exercise
legislative functions. It is an important clarification, after that for long they operated as
components of the same institution (at the same time with both executive and legislative
functions, Hix 2005:7). Certainly, the Council will continue to be constituted (sociologically) by
member states governmental ministers, a property which is not sufficient for considering it an
executive institution. Nor is sufficient to consider it as an executive institution because of the role
played by the committees of the Permanent Representatives of the member states governments in
its activities. Indeed, as Kreppel (2006: 265) argued, the latter might be considered a somewhat
unique committee structure that serves very similar purposes to those of the committees in the EP.
What matters is the role the Council plays in the institutional system of the EU and the tasks it is
asked to fulfil. In this regard, the Council, in its differentiated ministerial configurations (with few
exceptions as the Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Council and the Economic and Financial
Council), is a legislative institution, as it is the case of the German Bundesrat which is a legislative
institution notwithstanding the fact that it is constituted of the representatives of the Laenders
1

The Lisbon Treaty, that has entered into force on 1 December 2009, is constituted by the amendments to the two
consolidated treaties, the Treaty on the European Union or TUE of 1992 and the Treaty on the European Community,
renamed as Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union or TFUE, of 1957, plus the Declaration concerning the
Charter of Fundamental Rights considered de facto as a third treaty.

executives. The Lisbon Treaty has institutionalized a bicameral legislature, organized around a
double principle of representation (individual voters and member states), as it is proper of federal,
federalized or federalizing territorial systems (Elazar 1987).
At the same time, the Lisbon Treaty, recognizing the European Council as an executive
institution, has also institutionalized a dual executive between the European Council and the
Commission, apparently as in semi-presidential systems (France of the Fifth Republic being the
most coherent type) (Colomer 2010). A development discussed and asked for since the beginning of
the 2000s (Lassalle and Levrat 2004; Hoffman 2003). With the crucial difference that, unlike the
French executive, the Commission is not formed within the parliament as it is the case for the
French Council of Ministers (Elgie 1999), and thus cannot be the expression of a parliamentary
majority. Indeed, the Commission is a technocratic body contrary to the French Council of
Ministers which is a political one. Although the relation between the president of the European
Council and the president of the Commission is not defined in the Lisbon Treaty and although such
institutional uncertainty might develop in different directions depending on specific historical
opportunities and the personal qualities of the leaders acting in the two roles, it seems inevitable
that the former enjoys a higher political legitimacy than the latter.
The institutional architecture designed by the Lisbon Treaty seems to have affected the
traditional distinction between intergovernmental and supranational institutions (de Scoutheete
2011). The European Council, with its permanent presidency, might become more than a purely
intergovernmental institution and the Commission, consisting (till 2014) of one national of each
Member State, including its President and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs
and Security Policy who shall be one of its Vice-Presidents (TEU, Art.17.4), might become less
than a purely supranational institution. To be sure, regarding the latter, the Lisbon Treaty, TEU Art.
17.5, states that after 1 November 2014 the Commission will be composed of two thirds of the
number of the Member States, unless the European Council, acting unanimously, decides to alter
this number. Nevertheless, the path dependencys logic makes also plausible to assume that the
small member states will pressure for keeping the status quo, in order to guarantee an equally
weighted geographical composition even within the Commission. It is thus plausible that the future
evolution of the executive power might make the distinction between an intergovernmental
European Council and a supranational Commission less certain than in the past.

I. 2. Ambiguity and differentiation in the Lisbon Treaty

If the Lisbon Treaty has formalized a quadrilateral decision-making system closer to a

separation of powers than to a fusion of powers system, nevertheless it has done that with some
rhetorical ambiguity and policies exception.
Lets start with the ambiguity. According to the Treaty (TEU, Art. 17.7), the European
Council, taking into account the elections to the European Parliament and after having held the
appropriate consultations, () , acting by qualified majority, shall propose to the European
Parliament a candidate for the President of the Commission. This candidate shall be elected (my
Italics) by the European Parliament by a majority of its component members. If the candidate is
elected, adds the following paragraph of the same Article, the Council, by common accord with the
President-elect, shall adopt the list of the other persons whom it proposes for appointment as
members of the Commission (). Thus, the President, the High Representative of the Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the other members of the Commission shall be subject as a
body to a vote of consent by the European Parliament. On the basis of this consent the Commission
shall be appointed by the European Council, acting by a qualified majority. Thus, according to the
Treaty, the EP has the power to elect the president of the Commission but to give the advice and
consent for the entire Commission.
From the perspective of comparative analysis, the wording of the Lisbon Treaty refers to two
opposed legislative roles: to elect the only head of the executive (which is proper of the
parliamentary model, in particular of the chancellors type as in Germany, where the only
chancellor receives the confidence vote from the Bundestag on the basis of which s/he then
proceeds to form the cabinet) and to give advice and consent on the executives members (which is
proper of the congressional model, in particular of a presidential type of government as in the
United States). Moreover, that wording hides the complexity of the decision-making process taking
place within the European Council on the choice for the role of the Commissions president. The
formula taking into account the elections to the European Parliament is technically generic, given
that those elections are organized by proportional representation systems which cannot generate an
electoral majority, unless the EP party system is already structured according to a bipolar format in
each of all the member states2, which is not the case. Thus, it is unlikely that the European Council
could perform as a notary, a sort of collegial head of state, limiting itself to formalize the outcome
of the parliamentary elections.
On the contrary, within the European Council, regarding the choice for the Commissions
president, political considerations will be counterweighted by geographical or member states
2

I refer to the classical analysis of Sartori (1976 now 2005) on the correlation between electoral system and party
system.

considerations. If that is plausible, how is it possible to talk of an election by the EP of the

Commissions president when the European Council maintain the fundamental power of choosing
the candidate for the job on the basis of its institutional considerations? By definition, the power to
elect implies a freedom to choose, not a constrained choice. De facto, the EP does not have the
mandate to elect the Commissions president, but rather to accept or reject the European Councils
choice (or in the better hypothesis to negotiate with it the potential candidate). The emphasis on the
role of the EP in electing the Commission seems to be a rhetorical concession to the
parliamentarist ideology of European political elites. According to this ideology, parliaments matter
only if they form (elect) a government (Farrell and Scully 2007) and, at the same time, a
government is legitimated only if formed and supported by the popular legislature (Hix, Noury and
Roland 2006a and 2006b). The parliamentary model seems to be the exclusive democratic model
for European political elites, who think indeed that the European Parliament is a parliament but not
a very European one (Lord 2003: 31). Ambiguity concerns also specific inter-institutional relations
between the executive and the legislature. Consider the relations between the European Council and
the General Affairs Council (the configuration of the legislative Council coordinating all the other
ministerial configurations of the latter). The Treaty affirms that the General Affairs Council (TEU,
Art. 16.6) is in charge of preparing the work and ensuring the follow-up to the meetings of the
European Council, in liaison with the President of the European Council and the Commission. If
the president of the European Council is an executive officer, then his/her activity should be
supported by the staff of the Commission and not by that of a legislative chamber (as the General
Affairs Council).
If the above ambiguity has a cultural character, other parts of the Lisbon Treaty reflect
instead a differentiation of logic. Particularly in foreign and financial policies, the quadrilateral
decision-making system has been suspended (Dauvergne 2011; Puetter and Wiener 2011). The logic
of integration through law does not inform the functioning of those policies where integration is
instead advanced through policy coordination among member states governments. Integration
through voluntary policy coordination inevitably emphasizes the role of the European Council and
the Council at the detriment of the EP (and the European Court of Justice in particular). In foreign
and financial affairs, the member states have accepted to proceed in the process of integration, at the
condition, however, to keep under their control the development of those policies. This strategy has
meant to de-legalize the nature of the policy-making outcome for stressing instead the voluntary
bases of the coordinations process. Certainly, the governments have recognized the need to have
the cooperation of the Commission, but the latters contribution should have a purely technical
nature. In both policies, moreover, there is no place for the EP in the decision-making framework.
6

For example in foreign policy, the High Representative, who is the spokesman/woman of the
ministers as permanent chair of Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Council, is also the vicepresident of the Commission. However, this double hat of the HR has not introduced a
supranational logic in that Council. In fact, in the Libyan crisis of 2011, the Foreign Affairs Council
and (above all) the European Council kept the control of the decision-making process to such an
extent that, within them, a Franco-British directoire emerged with the effect of neutralizing
altogether the supranational hat of the HR. Or for example, in financial policy, the Lisbon Treaty
states that the Economic and Financial Council (or ECOFIN), in order to secure the euros place in
the international monetary system, on a proposal from the Commission, shall adopt a decision
establishing common position on matters of particular interest for economic and monetary union
(TFUE, Art. 138.1). But also here, in the context of the dramatic Euros crisis of 2011, the ECOFIN
and (above all) the European Council kept the control of the decision-making process, with the
Commission playing mainly a technical role although of great importance, to such an extent that the
intergovernmental logic ended up in generating a new (this time German-French) directoire. One
has thus to recognize that the intergovernmental logic, left by itself, is going to generate probable
hierarchies between member states, hierarchies that are in contradiction with the multilateral nature
of the EU as celebrated by the Lisbon Treaty.

II. Beyond parliamentarization of the EU

II.1. The parliamentary interpretation of the EU
Notwithstanding what the EU has become, a recurrent critique has continued to be raised
regarding its institutional logic since the 1970s. Namely, that the EU has a democratic deficit
because the EP is not a true parliament. According to this critique (Hix 2008a and 2008b; Koch and
Rittberger 2007; Hix, Noury and Roland 2006a; Follesdal and Hix 2005), the EP is not a true
parliament for several reasons. Two groups of them are crucial. The first group has to do with its
governmental role and the second with its legislative role. Regarding the first, the EP is not
considered a true parliament because it does not play a decisive role in the formation of the
Commission (which is assumed to be the European government). The EP does not have a party link
with the Commission in the sense that the party composition of the latter does not reflect the
partisan majority of the EP. Moreover, the election of its members (the MEPs) is a second-order
election because of a lack of a truly trans-European party system (which explains, for this critique,
the low turnout in those elections). Regarding the second group of reasons, the EP is not a true
parliament because it does not have those crucial powers that are assumed to be proper of a popular
7

legislature in democratic systems, such as the power to initiate the legislative process (although the
EP might solicit the Commission to submit specific legislative proposals) or the power to decide
and raise Union taxes.
According to this critique, the strengthening of the legislative role of the EP seems to be a
functional consequence of the affirmation of its governmental role. For doing that, it should be
necessary to make the election of the EP the vehicle for a vigorous confrontation between partisan
alternatives, in particular through the promotion of different candidatures for the role of
Commissions president. For instance, during the 2009 parliamentary elections, several transEuropean federalist-oriented thinks-tanks and intellectuals asked the main parties participating in
the elections to indicate their candidate for the role of Commissions president, should they get the
majority of the EP seats (Bonvicini 2009), thus fusing the executive power (the Commission) with
the legislative power (the EP) as in parliamentary systems. Indeed, for Hix (2008a: 38), the EU is
a quasi-parliamentary system of government where a particular political majority could choose
its Commission with a particular policy agenda and so be in government at the EU level for a
particular period, while several member states and some political parties could find themselves in
opposition. Hix (2008a: 4) recognizes that the EU never will be, and never should be, like the
Westminster model of government, where a narrow political majority can dictate policy outcomes,
but rather the EU should become more like the German or Scandinavian models, that is more
consensus-oriented parliamentary systems. Such consensualism, for Hix (2008a: 4), has not
prevented Germany or Scandinavian parliamentary systems to function through the formation of a
broad coalitionin support of policy changes via an open and vigorous political debate 3. Thus for
transforming the quasi-parliamentary EU in a coherent parliamentary system, the EP should have
the power to elect its own Commission. Indeed, Hix (2008a: 159) has suggested to introduce a
formal or de facto change in the EU treaties in order to allow a majority in the European
Parliament to nominate, and the European Council to then approve by Qualified Majority Voting
the Commission and its president.
However, the strategy for parlamentarizing the EU seems to be at odds with what the EU has
become. First, the parliamentarists continue to consider the EU as institutionally organized around a
trilateral decision-making system, with the EP, the Council and the Commission. There is no room,
in their interpretation of the EU, for the European Council, notwithstanding its steadfast and
formidable decision-making growth and thus its formal recognition by the Lisbon Treaty. But if the
3

Indeed, Germany (since the late 1960s) and Scandinavian countries with the exception of Finland (since the end of
Second World War) have operated according to a competitive or bipolar logic (Lijphart 1999), not dissimilar from the
majoritarian logic of the British system. Certainly, their consensual political culture has allowed the formation of
governmental coalitions between the main parties of the two poles in situation of electoral stalemate or national crisis.

European Council has become the political head of the EU, and if its political composition is
dependent on member states domestic elections, how to guarantee its political convergence with
the Commissions president nominated by the EP? Second, proposing to give the EP the power to
nominate the Commissions president, the parliamentarists make an implausible assumption. How is
it plausible that (the governmental leaders in) the European Council give up the power to decide the
candidate for the Commissions president with whom it (and its permanent president) will have to
work? Third, German or Scandinavian parliamentary systems recognize only to the lower chamber
the role of forming the government. In Germany only the Bundestag (the popular legislature) of the
federal legislature has governmental prerogatives (to vote up and down a chancellor) and, in
Scandinavian countries, the higher chamber has a very limited power (indeed the Danish
parliament, the Folketing, is unicameral). How is it possible to adopt this model in the EU, where
the Council has maintained a powerful role? For the parliamentarists (Hix, Noury and Roland
2006b), the answer seems to reside in fostering the politicization of the EP elections. That
politicization would favour the emergence of a Left-Right politics, according to a logic similar to
the one operating in the EU parliamentary member states (Hix 2008b). Through the politicization of
its elections, thus, the EP might claim the role of the political chamber of the Union. Yet, the
strengthening of the lower chamber will not necessarily coincide with the weakening of the upper
chamber. If that is the case, then how to resolve the puzzle of possible different political majorities
in the bicameral legislature of the EU?

II.2. The conditions for parliamentary federations

Comparative analysis shows that parliamentary federations are structured institutionally on a
highly differentiated bicameral legislature. In parliamentary federations only the lower chamber (the
popular one) has the governmental prerogative to form the executive through the confidence vote.
The higher chamber (the one representing the member states) has important legislative prerogatives
in particular policies (such as budget and taxation), but it does not intervene in the formation of the
government (although it might condition it once it has been constituted). This legislative
differentiation derives from different reasons. It may be the outcome of a process of federalization
through the disaggregation of a previously unitary state with the popular chamber consolidated
enough to retain its governmental role (as in Belgium). Or it may be the outcome of a specific
constitutional tradition which stresses cabinets responsibility to the political majority of the lower
chamber (as in Canada or Australia). Or it may derive from the need to preserve a centre of

governmental authority in a process of radical decentralization of power (as in post Second World
War Germany) (Burgess and Gagnon 2010).
Yet, these political or constitutional reasons should be considered within a larger structural
context. Parliamentary federations seem to require also a reasonable balance (in demographic and
capabilities terms) between the territorial units in the higher chamber for not altering the
representation of individual voters in the lower chamber. Consider the cases of Germany and
Canada, the two more conspicuous Western parliamentary federations. After the Second World War,
German Laenders were designed by the Allied authorities (Jeffery and Savigear 1991) in order to
guarantee a structural equilibrium between them, thus preventing the resurgence of a future
territorial hegemonic actor (as it happened in the pre-Weimar confederal experience with Prussia
dominating the new German State, Ziblatt 2006). Only Bavaria, Saxony and the city states of
Bremen and Hamburg predated the Laender created in 1945 and thus formalized in the 1949 Basic
Law. Many of the other Laender were created as new entities, as shown by the hyphenated name of
some of them. In terms of asymmetry, the 1950 demographic ratio between the least populated
Lander (Bremen with 600,000 inhabitants) and the most populated one (North-Rhine Westphalia
with 13,2000,000 inhabitants) was 1:22. The ratio was inevitably affected by the following
demographic development of the country, but not radically altered. Indeed, in 2010, the ratio
between Bremen (still the least populated Lander with 660,706 inhabitants) and North-Rhine
Westphalia (still the most populated Lander with 17,854,154 inhabitants) was 1:26. The
consolidation of the parliamentary framework, combined with a political community grown
homogeneous in political cultures terms (with the marginalization of neo-Nazi and neo-Communist
parties), has made thus possible to organize a national political competition around the two main
political parties of the Right (Christian Democratic Union or CDU) and the Left (Social Democratic
Party or SPD). With the exception of the mainly catholic Bavaria (which has created its own version
of Christian democracys party the CSU), the Laender have not displayed cultural or linguistic
distinctions which could have prevented the development of a trans-Laender partisan competition.
In Canada, the governmental role of the popular chamber (House of Commons) is the
expression of the British legacy, unchallengeable by a Senate institutionally weak. Indeed, in the
latter, the 105 members are not only appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime
minister (expression of the political majority in the House of Commons), but their seats are assigned
on a regional - and not on a provincial - bases, with each of the four major regions receiving 24
seats and the remainder of the available seats being assigned to smaller territories (federal Canada is
constituted by 10 provinces and 3 territories). However, demography has helped the process of
consolidation of the parliamentary-federal model. In 1951, the ratio between the least populated
10

province (Prince Edward Island with 99,285 inhabitants) and the most populated one (Ontario with
4,597,542 inhabitants) was 1:46. The post-war demographic development has increased the ratio
between the two provinces (in 2006, it was 1:89 with Prince Edward Island still the least populated
province, 135,000 inhabitants, and Ontario still the most populated one, 12,600,00 inhabitants) but
not to the point of de-legitimizing the Houses political role. Moreover, the process of
parliamentarization of the federation has been eased by the fact that Canadian provinces have never
displayed constitutional distinctiveness vis--vis the national government and each other (Smith
1993). The relation between the centre and the provinces has been structured much more by the
meetings of the federal prime minister with the prime minister of each province, according to a
model defined as executive federalism 4, than by the working of the Senate. The recognition of the
linguistic distinctiveness of the French-speaking Quebec has contributed to trigger a high
decentralization (in favor of the provinces) of many policies, but this decentralization has not called
into question the exclusive role of the House of Commons in the formation of the government5.
On these comparative basis, it is thus possible to argue that the EU lacks the basic
conditions for the parliamentary federation model, even if associated with a powerful Bundesrat or
Council, for institutional and structural reasons: in the EU the executives role is shared by two
presidents, the institutional path dependency logic makes implausible the downgrading of the
Council, the cultural and linguistic divisions between the member states cannot be aggregated in a
Left vs. Right political competition, the deep demographic asymmetries of a Union of 27 member
states cannot be represented only by and in the EP. Indeed, if the formation of the government is
assigned mainly to the EP, then the least populated member states (i.e., Malta with its 408.000
inhabitants in 2011) will have an unacceptably smaller influence than the most populated member
state (i.e., Germany with its 81,471,834 inhabitants in 2011). The 2011 demographic ratio between
the least and the most populated member states was 1:202 (that is six times higher than the 2010
German ratio). Such asymmetry would be necessarily difficult to manage within a single
representative institution, unless a trans-national competition based on parties representing suprastate ideological programs and identities could develop. However, regional and member states
divisions (due not only to their size, but also their different national language and culture, economic
model, regional location, social structure) are destined to necessarily weaken any partisan attempt to
4

One might argue that the meeting of the (federal and provincial) prime ministers has functional similarities with the
European Council. However, in the latter case there is not a prime minister but two executive officers and the meeting is
formalized in the Treaty (where in Canada is a de facto practice or convention).
5
Regarding the other established cases of Western parliamentary federations, it is necessary to recall that also in Austria
and Australia the chamber representing respectively the nine laender and the six states (plus ten territories) plays a
minor role in policy-making vis--vis the popular chamber. The Belgian crisis seems to confirm that combining vertical
decentralization with horizontal centralization is difficult when the territorial or cultural communities are not (or
perceive to be not) symmetrical in terms of capabilities (or demography).

11

order them in the Left-Right format. On the contrary, if the decision-making power is shared by
multiple institutions, then Maltese voters may not be relevant in the EP as German voters, but they
can make their voice heard within the Council where decisions are taken on the basis of a supermajority logic or QMV (that is as 1 November 2014 a qualified majority shall be defined as at least
55% of the members of the Council, comprising at least fifteen of them and representing Member
States comprising at least 65% of the population of the Union, TEU Art. 16.4). Moreover, those
voters will have a voice (or a coalition power) in the European Council and even the Commission,
although according to the treaties the commissioners should represent the European interest and not
the interest of the member states of which they are national.
If the interpretation of the EU as a quasi-parliamentary system seems in contradiction with
what the EU has become, also the interpretation of the EU as a consociational system appears
unconvincing (Magnette and Papadopoulos 2008). Consociationalism is not only a style of policy or
politics, but an institutional logic based on the aggregation of the parties representing the main
(cultural, ethnic, linguistic or social) cleavages in a grand governmental coalition. Thus,
institutionally, consociationalism is congenial with a parliamentary system (as in Belgium) whose
decision-making process implies (or it would) the existence of a government, a condition inexistent
in the EU where there is no a government as such. Or it might be congenial with a separation of
powers system such as Switzerland, where not only the asymmetries between its cantons, although
significant, are much less higher than in the EU (the smallest canton, Appenzell Innerhoden, has a
population of 15.861 inhabitants and the largest one, Zurich, a population of 1,371.000 inhabitant,
with a ratio of 1:85), but also the executive is a unitary institution although with a collegial
composition. Two conditions that have made possible to identify a magic formula able of
consociating the territorial and the political divisions in a relatively stable majority within the
Federal Council (the collective executive of the confederation) (Kriesi and Trechsel 2008). It seems
structurally impossible to find such magic formula in the EU, with its dual executive and the
significant material asymmetries and cultural differences between its member states.

III. Checks and balances within the EU

If the EP cannot play the governmental role (to form the government), then is there a
different role for it? From a comparative institutional analysis approach, there are at least two
alternative models for a popular legislatures role in a democratic system: the parliamentary model,
according to which its role is to form a government, and the congressional model, according to

12

which its role is to balance the other legislative chamber and to check the executive branch 6.
According to Kreppel (2008: 161), the distinction between the two models is based on the relative
level of interdependence between the legislature and the executive branch: in the parliamentary
systems the executive branch is selected from within, and by, the legislature. Indeed, these are
fusion of powers systems. On the contrary, in separation of powers systems, the legislative and
executive branches (are) selected independently and () neither has the ability to dissolve or
remove the other from office. The first type of legislature is called parliament, the second
congress7. Thus, parliaments and congresses, generically, can be best understood as specific types
of legislature. It seems arguable that the Lisbon Treaty has created the conditions for the
congressional role of the EP.
Thus, notwithstanding some rhetorical ambiguity, the institutional reality of the EU is
significantly different from that of a parliamentary system, even of a consociational type. With the
Lisbon Treaty, the EU has come close to institutionalize, in the majority of policies, a system where
separated institutions share decision-making power. The four institutions (the European Council, the
Commission, the Council and the EP) are separated because none of them depend on the confidence
of the others for operating (there is no confidence vote in the EU), although each one has a voice in
the functioning of the others. It is an interlocking separation because those institutions are
constituted in different ways (through national elections in the case of the European Council and the
Council, through European elections within member states in the case of the EP, through a
reciprocal balancing between the European Council and the EP in the case of the Commission) but
at the same time they have to cooperate for reaching decisions. The staggered elections of the EP
and the Council (the former is elected every five years and the latter depends on the differentiated
schedules of their national elections) and the different sources of legitimacy each institution enjoys
(the voters acting as European electorates in the case of the EP, the voters acting as national
electorates in the case of the Council and the European Council) strengthen further their reciprocal
independence. At the same time, the Treaty requires those institutions to share decision-making
power. Because the support of each institution is necessary for the functioning of this multilateral
decision-making process, then the actors operating within each of them have an incentive to
6

Although government and executive are frequently considered as synonymous, indeed they reflect two structurally
different institutional systems. The government is proper of fusion of powers system, where it constitutes the
institution holding the ultimate decision-making power. The executive is proper of separation of powers system, where
it constitutes one of the institution sharing the decision-making power. In sum, in a separation of powers system there is
no a government as ultimate decision-making institution, whereas the formation of a government as ultimate decisionmaking institution is the basis of the functioning of a fusion of powers system.
7
It should be noticed that the congressional model of legislature does not require, per s, a presidential form of
government. What characterizes the congressional model is the reciprocal independence of the legislative and
executive branches, not a specific format of the latter. Indeed, the congressional model is functioning properly with
both a monocratic (in the US) or collegial (in Switzerland) executive.

13

cooperate and compromise, thus mitigating the potential paralyzing effects of their separation. The
EU is vertically a multi-level system and horizontally a multi-centred one.
If the EP is unconstrained by any governmental discipline towards the executive, its action
for checking the European Council and the Commission and balancing the Council will be effective
exactly because devoid of any political implication. The political independence of the EP from the
executive institutions of the EU constitutes the bases for its institutional strength and not for its
weakness. Indeed, the popular legislature in a separation of powers system is more powerful than
any popular legislature in a fusion of powers system. In the latter, with few exceptions, parliaments
have come to play a limited role in public policy making. Parliaments have even lost de facto the
power to initiate the legislative process now seized by the governments. The fusion between the
legislature and the government has obliged the former to become the disciplined supporting
structure of the latter, an obligation inexistent in separation of powers systems.
Moreover, in few but crucial common policies, such as foreign and financial ones, the Treaty
has left to the governments the control of the decision-making process to such an extent that the EP
is playing a marginal role (a marginality that involves also the European Court of Justice). The
Commission has been allowed to play the role of technical support to the decisions taken by the
European Council, but not that of an independent decision-maker. Not only in the Libyan crisis but
also and above all in the Euros crisis, the decision-making process was strictly controlled by the
European Council. At the same time, the depth of the two crises and the urgency of dealing with
them fostered the formation of hierarchical relations within the latter. In both crises, in sum, the
European Council emerged as the crucial executive institution, driven by internal directories (a
German-French directoire in financial policy and a French-British directoire in foreign policy). This
development challenged not only the balance between the institutions and the member states
formalized by the Lisbon Treaty but also the democratic standards the EU should respect for
legitimizing its decisions. Moreover, one might argue that, if the directoire worked in the Libyan
crisis, it did not so in the Euros crisis. And in any case, rather claiming the parliamentarization of
the EU, it might be more proper to pressure for extending the congressional role of the EP also to
these policy fields.

Conclusion
The strategy of parliamentarizing the EU seems to be at odds or ill-timed with the
institutional reality of the EU emerging from the Lisbon Treaty. Rather than lingering on the
rhetoric of a EP that should become pre-eminent in the Commissions formation, it is necessary that
14

the EP plays coherently its congressional role. A role of crucial importance now that the European
Council has acquired an indisputable predominance within the dual executive. In dealing with the
crisis of the Euro and the political turmoil in the countries of North Africa, it was (and it continues
to be in the financial crisis) the European Councils president (backed by the governmental leaders
of the larger and stronger member states) to have assumed a predominant role, with the Commission
and its president functioning as technical advisors to them. Those crisis have made the European
Councils president the political face and the Commissions president the functional one of the
Janus-kind EU executive8. However, a European Council-dominated EU constitutes a challenge to
the separation and balance of powers formalized by the Lisbon Treaty. In the logic of separation of
powers, it would be the role of the EP to activate for checking and balancing the decision-making
predominance acquired by the European Council, thus guaranteeing the multilateral nature of the
EU decision-making system. One might talk of a democratic deficit in the EU only if the EP does
not have the legal and institutional resources for playing this congressional role. This is not the case
in the majority of policies with the exception of few but crucial policies: may the EP extend its
congressional role also in the foreign and financial ones? The future of the EU as union of
asymmetrical states and their citizens depends on the consolidation of its multilateral nature. A
multilateral context where, interestingly enough, the centre of gravity should be more and more in
the power relation between the two institutions which were marginal (the EP) or inexistent (the
European Council) at the moment of the EUs foundation.

In this sense, it might help to rename the European Council as European Presidency, in order both to make clear is
executive role and to avoid further terminological confusion with the legislative Council.

15

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