THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Abstract

What role should the European Parliament ofthe European Union assume in the post-Nice run-up to further enlargement? Should it continue catalysing system transformation by re-defining its obligations in the light of contemporary circumstances and needs? By exploiting existing rules and by setting out future visions, including blueprints for a constitution, MEPs are developing the EP as the custodian, conscience and guardian of the kind of liberal democratic values , norms and behaviour appropriate to the millennium and characteristic of western liberal democratic representative government. This paper looks at how this has occurred . It shows how the EP moved from being the federalising dynamo behind realising a democratic institutional balance to promoting a participatory democracy as the champion of the people . The paper divides into four sections : (i) examines the EP's transformation from assembly to co-legislature arguing that it perpetually seeks re- definition ; (ii) relates this to a re - conceptualisation of democratic legitimacy ; (iii) addresses normative issues and the linkage between the institutional and civil dimensions to democratic legitimacy ; and (iv) outlines roles that might be both necessary and appropriate to a supranational legislature in the post-Nice treaty run - up to the next wave of enlargement and cruciall y fundamental institutional reform to accommodate new member states .