Abstract

Foreign policy has long been considered an area of particular difficulty for national parliamentary scrutiny, characterised by executive privilege, information asymmetry and quick decision-making. EU foreign and security policy adds an extra layer of complexity to this picture, requiring MPs to scrutinise the actions of their ministers through opaque negotiation processes, and involving Brussels-based institutions such as the EEAS that remain shielded from national parliamentary scrutiny. Yet actions taken at the EU level include many policy areas of high political salience, such as the imposition of sanctions on countries like Syria and Iran. How, in practice, do parliaments hold their governments accountable for their decisions in this field? Drawing on qualitative research conducted for the Observatory of Parliaments After Lisbon (OPAL), this presentation highlights the wide disparities in national parliamentary scrutiny of EU foreign policy, and challenges some of the dominant assumptions in the academic literature on the role of parliaments in this field.