The debate regarding a national parliaments’ opposition in EU politics is ambiguous andremarkably underdeveloped. Historically researchers argued that opposition in the context of national parliaments and European integration is decreasing at the national level. However, this idea has been challenged during the last few years by a few researchers when studying opposition in EU Member States and specifically Sweden. Even though the idea of a decreasing opposition at the national level has been challenged, researchers have primarily focused their studies on measuring opposition through quantitative approaches. Consequently, there is a shortage of research examining opposition through a qualitative lens which could grant there search field a more nuanced perspective of the opposition occurring in national parliaments.The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if and how opposition takes place in the Swedish European Affairs Committee [EAC], through a theoretical lens of opposition and parliamentary transformations. The thesis offers a comprehensive qualitative analysis of opposition by usinga reflexive thematic analysis. The results show that opposition exist in the Swedish EAC. However, political parties repeatedly fail to present alternatives to EU proposals and fail to debate suggestions stemming from the EU. This thesis shed light of how domestic opposition in EU politics can be studied through a qualitative lens and provides a more nuanced depictionof opposition.

L’usage de la résolution européenne a débuté en 1992, quand un nouvel article, le 88-4, a été introduit dans la Constitution, donnant pour la première fois à l’Assemblée nationale et au Sénat le droit de voter des résolutions sur des projets et propositions d’actes communautaires soumis par le Gouvernement. Le but de cet avantage en faveur du Parlement était de mettre en vigueur un contrôle parlementaire sur la politique européenne du Gouvernement. Au cours des années, la pratique de la résolution européenne montre l’inefficacité du rôle du Parlement au niveau européen. La portée de la résolution européenne demeure en soi non contraignante vis-à-vis du Gouvernement et des institutions européennes. Les cinq révisions constitutionnelles concernant les affaires européennes depuis 1992 ne peuvent pas y contribuer, malgré la dernière révision du 23 juillet 2008 reconnaissant le droit d’adoption d’une résolution européenne sur non seulement les projets ou propositions d’actes européens soumis par le Gouvernement, mais aussi sur « tout document émanant d’une institution de l’Union ». Le temps est venu pour le Parlement de mettre en place un contrôle parlementaire efficace au niveau européen. / The use of the European resolution started in 1992, when a new article, 88-4, was introduced in the Constitution, giving for the first time in the National Assembly and the Senate the right to vote on resolutions on projects and proposals for Community acts submitted by the Government. The purpose of this advantage in favor of the Parliament was put in force a parliamentary control over the Government's European policy. Over the years, the practice of the European resolution demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the role of the Parliament at European level. The scope of the European resolution remains inherently non-binding towards the Government and the European institutions. Five constitutional revisions concerning European Affairs since 1992 cannot contribute, despite the latest revision of July 23, 2008, recognizing the right to adoption of a European resolution on not only the projects or proposals of European acts submitted by the Government, but on ' any document emanating from an institution of the Union ' also. The time has come for Parliament to put in place an effective parliamentary control at European level.

This thesis aims to map what arguments are used by the two biggest parties in Swedish politics, The Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party, when discussing European politics in the European Affairs Committee (EAC) of the Swedish parliament. In order to realise this, frames used by the party representatives in the committee have been analysed. With the typology of Helbling et. al. (2010), a categorisation of four frames is applied, where each frame corresponds with a side of the left-right or the GAL-TAN-dimension. The study is structured by a number of hypotheses constructed based on findings of previous research, comparing both between the parties and changes over time. The results are assessed in relative terms, meaning that the study focuses on the parties’ relative use of frames rather than the absolute. All hypotheses find full or partial support, confirming expectations of previous research made on other European countries. However, some surprising results are found, highlighting new potential research questions for future studies.

This thesis deals with the topic of individual parliamentary scrutiny of European affairs in Slovakia. The aim of this thesis is to determine which factors influenced the formally strong system of parliamentary scrutiny in the Slovak National Assembly. 6 factors will be analyzed - Late accession to the EU, parliamentary strength, bargaining strength in the Council of EU, public euroscepticism, euroscepticism of political parties and the frequency of coalition and minority governments. The strength of parliamentary scrutiny can also be influenced by informal aspects. The informal aspects in this thesis will be mainly concerned with the efforts of the members of the European Affairs Committee to acquire additional information about legislative proposals of the EU in an informal way and also their efforts for a better cooperation in parliamentary scrutiny among various political parties. The empirical analysis found, that the factor of late accession to the EU and euroscepticism of political parties had the biggest effect on the formally strong system of parliamentary scrutiny in Slovakia. A partial effect can be also attributed to the factors of public euroscepticism and the frequency of coalition and minority governments. Even though a formally strong system of parliamentary scrutiny does exist in...