Who Cares About the EU? French MPs and the Europeanisation of Parliamentary Questions

Abstract

This study is based on the idea that the effective involvement of national parliamentarians in European Union (EU) affairs is as important for the capacity of national parliaments to adapt to the consequences of European integration as the elaboration of new institutional mechanisms. It therefore investigates the attention given to Europe in parliamentary questions as an indicator of the Europeanisation of the French National Assembly. Have French MPs developed a greater degree of attention to Europe in their ordinary work? What are the factors behind individual variations in MPs' attention to Europe? The empirical analysis of more than 334,000 questions from 1988 to 2007 shows the limited Europeanisation of French MPs' work, revealing that the type of questions (oral, written, to the government) is the most significant factor explaining the level of attention given to Europe.