<p>In order to have some say and to scrutinise the government all member states of the EU today has established an institution within their national parliaments, the Committee of European Affairs. This institution, however, has very different rights and regulations depending on the country it is established in. This study uses two rather similar countries, Sweden and Denmark, and investigates what differences and similarities the two committees show.</p><p>By constructing a comparative case study of four units of analysis, the governments and committees of European Affairs in Sweden and Denmark, the formal and informal power relationship between government and committee in each country were studied in order to determine similarities and differences and whether the committee had an impact on the governments’ EU policies. Further they were compared, assessing whether the Danish Committee of European Affairs was more powerful than its Swedish counterpart because of its legal basis in an EU document.</p><p>The theoretical framework was built on empirical institutionalism and Lukes’ first and second dimension of power. The similarities and differences were accounted for and compared. In conclusion, the Danish Committee of European Affairs has more formal power than its Swedish counterpart but regarding informal power the Swedish Committee of European Affairs has a slight advantage. Both committees have an impact on the way their government handle negotiations with the EU.</p><p>Keywords: formal power, informal power, the Committee of European Affairs, Sweden, Denmark</p>

In order to have some say and to scrutinise the government all member states of the EU today has established an institution within their national parliaments, the Committee of European Affairs. This institution, however, has very different rights and regulations depending on the country it is established in. This study uses two rather similar countries, Sweden and Denmark, and investigates what differences and similarities the two committees show. By constructing a comparative case study of four units of analysis, the governments and committees of European Affairs in Sweden and Denmark, the formal and informal power relationship between government and committee in each country were studied in order to determine similarities and differences and whether the committee had an impact on the governments’ EU policies. Further they were compared, assessing whether the Danish Committee of European Affairs was more powerful than its Swedish counterpart because of its legal basis in an EU document. The theoretical framework was built on empirical institutionalism and Lukes’ first and second dimension of power. The similarities and differences were accounted for and compared. In conclusion, the Danish Committee of European Affairs has more formal power than its Swedish counterpart but regarding informal power the Swedish Committee of European Affairs has a slight advantage. Both committees have an impact on the way their government handle negotiations with the EU. Keywords: formal power, informal power, the Committee of European Affairs, Sweden, Denmark

The thesis deals with activities of Czech parliamentary parties during EU-affairs discussion in the Chamber of Deputies, Parliament of the Czech Republic. The main focus is on three characteristic features of political parties during their activities on the parliamentary level: stability (rhetorical, voting, and programmatic), use of parliamentary oversight tools, and fulfilling their systemic function. The parties are seen through the prism of behavioural approach. EU-affairs are a rather new topic with a variable salience for national parties. EU-affairs influence party competition in extra-parliamentary arena. Conflict, however non-salient topics in parliamentary arena are ousted by governmental parties in order for them to keep governmental stability. The parties do not act according to their party manifestoes (low level of Europeanization); instead, their voting behaviour indicates that the parties follow logic of parliamentary competition between government and opposition. Parliamentarization of EU governance (engagement of national parliaments in broader institutional setting of the EU) leads to spreading of party competition on the national level to a new policy area. Political parties use tools of parliamentary scrutiny in a rather limited extent and according to their actual position within the system. The thesis also deals with party nomination and composition of the Committee on European affairs which holds oversight powers. The empirical analysis is based on the analysis of voting behaviour of parliamentary party groups (roll-call data), stenographic records, Committee and plenary session resolutions and quantitative analysis of composition of the Committee.