The European Parliament's Role in Closer EU Integration

Nearly twenty years after it first became an elected institution, it is time to assess the impact of the European Parliament on the process of European integration. This book does so, beginning with an analysis of what integration theorists expected of the directly elected Parliament when such an idea was still on the drawing board and then examining what the Parliament has achieved in practice. It concludes that the Parliament has been extremely significant though not always in the ways initially expected.

Richard Corbett's years of experience at various levels in the European Parliament and previous academic research provide the basis for his examination of the Parliament's impact on the successive renegotiations of the European treaties and also its day-to-day influence on the development of European policies. He looks at the impact on Europe's political parties of this new political animal: the full-time MEP. For anyone interested in the process of European integration, this book is a must.