Parliamentary scrutiny of European Union affairs in Lithuania: the factor of divergence of parties’ preferences within a coalition

In the 1970s, the process of European integration induced discussions about the deficit of democracy in the European Union (EU). The decrease of national parliaments’ powers and the increase of the autonomy of executive branches are named as one of the aspects of this problem. As this problem has been realised, national parliaments began to create different mechanisms for scrutinizing the activity of national governments at the level of EU institutions. Gradually, the European Affairs Committees (EAC) were founded in all EU member states. However, despite the role given to these innovations, the academic society, political analysts and politicians have doubts as to the effectiveness of these scrutiny mechanisms. When analyzing the issue of the parliamentary scrutiny of the EU affairs, very often the parliament is perceived as an undivided, integral object. However, the parliament is composed of different political parties that can have very different or similar attitudes and may form coalitions or become an oppositional power. When a government is composed of more than one political party, the informational asymmetry is increasing. Therefore, the need for the parliamentary scrutiny increases, too. Not only oppositional parties, but also the parties that have formed a coalition become the actors that scrutinize the government. These parties feel the need to scrutinize ministers and their subordinates who represent their coalitional partners in the government. This need increases even more when there is a high level of preference divergence within a coalition of political parties. The main issue of this study was to elucidate whether the level of preference divergence within a coalition determines the intensity of parliamentary scrutiny of the EU affairs. The Lithuanian case study is analysed. Results of the research show that, depending on the parties’ position in the economic and ideological left–right scale, the level of preference divergence in the 2006–2008 coalition was higher that in the 2008–2012 coalition. However, in the 2008–2012 coalition there was a higher disagreement in the area of socio-cultural issues (in the area of human rights and liberties). Both coalitions had very similar attitudes towards the process of the European integration. Almost all parties could be named as euro-optimistic parties. A nalysis of the protocols of EAC meetings showed that in the period 18.11.2008–30.04.2012 there was implemented a more intensive parliamentary scrutiny than in the period 06.07.2006–17.11.2008. Thus, despite the lower level of preference divergence in the 2008–2012 coalition, during the period of its governing the instruments of parliamentary scrutiny were used more often than in 2006–2006. A more detailed analysis allows to conclude that a more intensive scrutiny in the second period was determined by a more active participation of the Seimas member V. Valkiūnas (who has a very skeptical attitude towards the EU) in the meetings of the EAC and the more intensive role of opposition in the activities of this committee. The number of cases when coalition partners could not reach a consensus during the EAC sessions was very small both in 06.07.2006–17.11.2008 and in 18.11.2008–30.04.2012. The cases when this consensus was not reached were related to spiritual, very ideologised issues and to the issues that were very important to interest groups. Moreover, in Lithuania, the EAC is not perceived as an area or the instrument to control coalitional partners despite the differences in the positions of the coalitional parties..