The Role of the Estonian Parliament after Accession to the European Union
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Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law of the Concordia International University in Estonia
After accession to the European Union, the role of representation of the people will be limited, in the context of legislation, to the problem of how to ensure legislative control over the executive power, which is the state’s main representative in the decision-making process on the European level.
Considering the important role of the Parliament’s European Affairs Committee, there should be a permanent committee whose members should be responsible for presenting the positions of their parties and where consensus should be attained concerning the political mandate to be given to the Government. The binding-ness of the mandate should also be specified. It is important to define Parliament’s directions of activity as an applicator of supranational law. If the community’s legislation cannot be applied in an unchanged form, the state’s legislator’s task will be to apply the provisions of the community, i.e. to include their contents into national legislation. Particular attention should be paid to freedom of implementation of the directives. Aside from that, communication mechanisms should be developed in order to influence legislation on the European Union level. The Estonian Parliament will have to take account in its operation of the fact that a part of sovereignty will be delegated to supranational institutions, but these will act as a guardian of national interests.