The data indicate the activities of national parliaments vis-à-vis the EU or the period 2010-2012. They include debates on EU matters, questions and other parliamentary activities, including who initiated the activities. This collection covers all parliamentary chambers in the UK, Poland, Germany and Slovakia. Data on the other EU Member States is held by the Paris team and will be released in 2017.The role of national parliaments in European integration is a topical issue in current political and academic debates.The Lisbon Treaty significantly expands the influence of national parliaments in EU policy-making, introducing “Provisions on Democratic Principles” which stipulate that “national parliaments contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union”. Very little research has been done on the question of how these institutional reforms and new legal stipulations actually impact on the role of national parliaments in EU affairs in practice. This joint project with Cologne, Maastricht and Sciences Po addresses this gap and for the first time gathers comprehensive data on parliamentary involvement in EU affairs across all 27 Member States. It will carry out in-depth research on: parliamentary scrutiny of EU legislative processes parliamentary involvement in non-legislative EU policy processes, especially foreign policy parliamentary activity beyond the domestic arena (inter-parliamentary co-operation and contacts with EU institutions the parliamentary infrastructure in EU affairs (the role of parliamentary administrations, recruitment and socialisation). Cambridge will focus on (2), with special reference to EU foreign, security and defence policy. It will undertake in-depth case studies on the UK and Poland and cover Ireland and the Baltic States.

The data were collected individually by researchers systematically reviewing the records of activities of each national parliamentary chamber in the EU member state concerned, according to a predetermined set of criteria outlined in the Codebook.