In recent decades, political scientists have engaged intense debates about changes governance the modern state. Confronted with globalization, regionalization, and increasing functional differentiation of societies, governments have to manage interdependence by coordinating policies across territorial borders. But while policymaking is increasingly deterritorialized, democratic institutions remain organized on a territorial basis. Accountability of the to parliaments continues to constitute the institutional core of democracy. Hence, with the rise of multilevel governance, the close linkage between effective governance and democratic government has dissolved.In transnational federations like the EU and federal nation-states, this incongruence is hardly new. In Canada, scholars have characterized the evolution of intergovernmental relations between the federal and provincial governments as executive federalism. On the other side of the Atlantic, Andrew Moravcsik's conclusion that European integration strengthened the executives of nation-states found many supporters.1 While the powers of the European parliament have been extended, national parliaments have appeared to lose power during the integration process, not unlike what has been observed with regard to provincial parliaments Canada.These challenges to parliaments are similar national and supranational federations.2 Yet institutional conditions and the impact of multilevel governance differ. Canada and Europe provide highly interesting cases for comparative study, which can help us to better understand the current dilemmas that arise with the transformation of democracy multilevel systems. In contrast to Canada, where parliamentary systems exist at the federal and provincial level, the European federation in the making still lacks the institutional conditions of a well-established democracy at the central level. The parliament, directly elected since 1979, has now received co-decision rights important areas of legislation, but the council, the assembly of member-state executives, continues to hold primary legislative power. Elections to the parliament regularly turn out to be second order elections.3This particular constitutional quality explains why national parliaments have always been accorded an important role asserting the democratic legitimacy of European policymaking. They have responded to executive federalism European-style. Instead of merely claiming veto power, they developed a broad set of instruments to effectively participate multilevel governance, particular through establishing relations with other national parliaments and to the European parliament. In Canada, this trend towards interparliamentary relations is much weaker, despite a continuous evolution of intergovernmental relations and despite concerns about a democratic deficit.Given these variations, an inquiry into both cases can help us to better understand and explain the interplay between federalism, multilevel governance, and democracy. Such a comparative approach reveals different responses of European and Canadian parliaments to multilevel policymaking. Variations can be traced back to particular mechanisms of intra- and intergovernmental politics. By considering the dynamic interplay of these mechanisms, we can gain new perspectives on multilevel democracy beyond the common skeptical perceptions emphasizing deficits. We can discover institutional learning and adaptation, which are driven by tensions between inter- and intrago vemmental arenas. The next section describes these tensions greater detail and is followed by an analysis of their consequences.TENSIONS BETWEEN MULTILEVEL GOVERNANCE AND PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACYBy dividing and sharing powers, multilevel political systems per se imply differentiation and interdependence. But with recent changes state functions, public policies, and the national and international economy and society, the traditional two-level structure federal states has turned into more complex patterns of governance. …