Are French Laws Written in Brussels? The Limited Europeanization of Law-Making in France and Its Implications

Abstract

Evaluating the power of national political systems in the European Union (EU) and the cross influence of national and European levels of governance strongly divides scholars, politicians, and citizens. Since the beginning of the 1990s, public debate surrounding European integration has often featured questions concerning its impact on the national political system and especially on the balance of power between legislative and executive bodies. The “democratic deficit” concept stems from the hypothesis that reinforcement of the European Community was weakening parliaments and giving increasing power to governments (Moravcsik 1994) via the EC Council and European Council. On another dimension, the work of Majone (1996) on the “European regulatory state” follows the famous statement of Jacques Delors about the dominance of EU over national legislation. Nevertheless, in the academic field, there is still no general agreement on the identity of “winners” and “losers” in European integration, as evidenced in the various integration theories and their divergent conclusions. One of the reasons for these ongoing controversies is the lack of solid and systematic data on Europeanization, and especially Europeanization of national laws.