PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

An effective parliament (II): Parliament’s involvement in international affairs I 171
tions for the budget, economy and environment, to name but a few. Similar
impact assessments are made under the procedure for dealing with European
legislative acts by the French Parliament.
The submission from Latvia explains that the development of a negotiating
position on legislative proposals before the European Council is a joint
responsibility of the government and the Seima. The relevant ministry ‘has to
agree on the national position with the Seima European Affairs Committee’.
That Committee, however, only has enough qualified staff to deal with the
most important issues, and has the same concern noted above about securing
early information of legislative proposals coming from the European
Commission. The submission notes two additional mechanisms for strengthening
parliamentary involvement. One is the right of representatives from the
EAC to have observer status at the EU Council of Senior Officials. The other
is closer cooperation with the Latvian Members of the European Parliament,
through the office of two permanent representatives of the Seima in the
European Parliament. This cooperation is also a feature of the Hungarian
National Assembly, where Hungarian Members of the European Parliament
are entitled to attend and speak in plenary sessions where the agenda includes
European matters.
Before concluding this section a word should be said about the Pan-African
Parliament, a key political institution within the recently formed African
Union. The submission for the present study from the South African
Parliament itemises some of the challenges which have to be overcome if this
parliamentary assembly is to be effective, beginning with the cessation of
regional conflict:
■ Regional conflict and boundary disputes waste resources, distract
the country and region from development, destroy physical and
social infrastructure and contribute to social and cultural disintegration.
The cessation of regional conflict is the first imperative for
regional parliamentary dialogue.
■ The existence of ineffective national parliaments and weak parliamentary
structures creates difficulties when they are required to
operate at a regional and continental level. The strengthening of
parliaments at a national level would provide the platform for
continental parliamentary cooperation..
■ The overlapping membership of regional organizations can lead to
duplication and may contribute to conflicting foreign policies.