Professor Kaiser began by recognizing that much of the influence of the European Parliament has not been well understood by social scientists, as they have been too focused on formal powers and processes. For this reason, his goal was to show the ways in which the history of the European Parliament has contributed to the present-day European Union in terms of its internal constitution and identity, predominantly through informal procedures.

Kaiser's first main point was to argue that the European Parliament contributed greatly to creating the democratic deficit narrative, albeit without using the exact term, as early as the 1950s. It criticized the bureaucratic nature of European integration – that the integration process should not be dominated by an independent executive. However, that was exactly the kind of technocratic internationalist model that figures like Jean Monnet preferred. In effect, the European Parliament was exacerbating the narrative around the democratic deficit to legitimize its own demands for greater parliamentary powers, providing a sense of democratic legitimacy for integration. This view continued to distinguish itself from the narrative of individuals like Charles de Gaulle who believed the Member States should control integration.

Kaiser further argued that the Parliament managed to have a major long-term impact on the present-day EU's development as a polity through its role in drafting of constitutional blueprints. Many social scientists have dismissed this historical aspect as none of these constitutions were ever ratified. In contrast, Kaiser argued that the Parliament still played a major role. First of all, it established certain democratic thresholds as minimum standards for EU-level, transnational democracy. Furthermore, some elements of earlier EP drafts like the principle of subsidiarity from the 1984 Draft Treaty on European Union later became part of revised treaties, in this case in the Maastricht Treaty. The Parliament has also played a major role in inserting key ideas into treaty reforms. For example, one of the big claims of the Parliament was that it become a co-legislator with the Council of Ministers, which of course is now the case.

He went on to show that the Parliament has played a role in forming the EU's normative identity, both internally and externally. For example, it was the Parliament that first introduced the question of political criteria for accession as early as 1962, not the Member States. Notably, this was done at a time when some political factions of some Member States would have contemplated the accession of Franco's Spain to the EEC. These criteria eventually made their way to the Copenhagen Declaration on European Identity of 1972 and the 1993 Copenhagen Criteria as well as the present-day Lisbon Treaty. Externally, the Parliament in this manner laid the groundwork for its democratic symbolic politics, as reflected recently in its strong support for Ukraine.

Kaiser's final point was its influence on EU policymaking, particularly the importance of networking. As early as the 1970s, networking in the Parliament allowed individual MEPs to draw on their social capital, like technical expertise and cultural skills, to influence policymaking. Similarly, when the Community first became interested in the field of environment in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was originally through the Parliament addressing concrete concerns of citizens at the local and regional level, which had major transnational implications for the Community as a whole.

In all, Kaiser argued that social scientists have been fairly limited in their interpretations of the Parliament's role in influencing the modern-day EU. By shifting focus on the informal processes of influence, he has laid out several concrete ways in which the Parliament have shifted the broader European narrative, politics, and policy-making, even if it was for a long time less visible in public than intergovernmental negotiations.



Full Audio:

History of the Present Series

hosted by Professor Mark Gilbert


SAIS Europe students, faculty, staff, and guests are allowed to attend in person at SAIS Europe, via B. Andreatta 3, Bologna. To participate online, please register for the webinar.

Wolfram Kaiser is Professor of European Studies at the University of Portsmouth, UK, and a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium. Since April 2022 he has been the head, in a part-time capacity, of the newly established European Parliament History Service. Kaiser has been a visiting professor or research fellow at a variety of institutions, including the Centre for Global Cooperation Research in Duisburg, Germany, the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, the Free University of Berlin, and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies. He has published widely on European, transnational and global history, and in interdisciplinary European/EU studies. His publications include: (with L. Bardi et al.) The European Ambition: The Group of the European People's Party and European Integration(2020); Shaping European Union: The European Parliament and Institutional Reform 1979-89(2018); (with J. Schot) Writing the Rules for Europe: Experts, Cartels and International Organisations(2014); (with S. Krankenhagen and K. Poehls) Exhibiting Europe in Museums: Transnational Networks, Collections, Narratives, and Representations (2014); Christian Democracy and the Origins of European Union(2007); Using Europe, Abusing the Europeans: Britain and European Integration 1945-63 (1999).