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The European Parliament oversight of EU agencies through written questions

Nuria Font (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) & Ixchel Pérez Durán (Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals)
Nuria Font (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) & Ixchel Pérez Durán (Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals)

The European Parliament has recently joined the European Commission in monitoring the activities of the European Union’s sprawling army of regulatory agencies. While we may welcome that elected representatives increasingly assume the role of agency watchdogs, we know little about the factors that drive parliamentarians’ use of their oversight powers. Drawing on original data from the European Parliament’s past term, Nuria Font and Ixchel Pérez Durán find that MEPs from national opposition parties are more likely to ask questions about regulatory agencies than their colleagues from governing parties. Read their article “The European Parliament oversight of EU agencies through written questions” published in the Journal of European Public Policy to learn how some members of the European Parliament use their oversight powers to make up for their information disadvantages.