Rediscovering Europe in the Netherlands - St Antony's College ...

safeguards and direct citizen participation
to compensate for any changing relationships between the executive
branch and parliament that might occur as a result of Europeanisation. The
Danish parliamentary mandate is a well-known example: The arrangements
allow Danish ministers to co-operate in European decision making
only after a mandate has been approved by the Danish Parliament (Van den
Brink 2004). Other eu member states have established comparable – albeit
generally less far-reaching – safeguards. Although the Netherlands has
established a parliamentary right of assent in matters concerning Justice
and Home Affairs (jha), the intention of the two Houses of Parliament
was never to regulate the relationship with the government, but, instead,
to compensate for the lack of parliamentary involvement at the European
level (Van den Brink 2004). In practice, however, this mechanism has actually
developed into a tool that enables Parliament to exercise some measure
of control over the government. However, there are also problems, such
as a lack of insight into the dynamics of the European decision making
process and the overloading of the parliamentary committees concerned
(Raad van State 2003; Den Heijer 2007). Consequently, there may be a risk
that a parliamentary right of assent will be transformed into a serious
obstacle in the decision making process (which also frustrates decision
making in Brussels), rather than a means of initiating a substantive debate
on eu policy proposals. Another problem is that the parliamentary right
of assent has virtually no visible impact on Dutch citizens. Even if a
substantive debate were to take place in Parliament, it would contribute
very little to the notion that citizens’ views are being represented in the
areas of Justice and Home Affairs.
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Horizontal safeguards may not only be relevant at the level of specific
policy issues, but also in the accommodation of generic views on European
co-operation. As indicated in chapter 2, legitimacy problems are not
limited to the level of individual policy issues, but manifest themselves
on the level of political community as well. These latter problems can be
explained by the inherently ambiguous nature of the eu itself. Indeed, the
eu is not just an unprecedented entity (and can therefore not be understood
in state-like terms), but is also engaged in a continuous process of
intensive change and permanent development. Beck (2006) accordingly
argues that Europe is permanently in the ‘design phase’. Shaping the eu is
not only a European matter, but also a permanent national and therefore a
Dutch responsibility.
Constitutional safeguards
The present discussion on the significance of the Dutch Constitution for
government and society (see, e.g., Nationale Conventie 2006) provides
some interesting perspectives on the strengthening of eu legitimacy in the