Journal of Public Policy (2023), page 1 of 22
doi:10.1017/S0143814X23000132
RESEARCH ARTICLE
On time or with a delay? Transposition of EU
directives in the Czech Republic in relation to
subsidiarity check
Pavla Hosnedlová and Markéta Pitrová
Department of International Relations and European Studies, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University,
Brno, Czech Republic
Corresponding author: Pavla Hosnedlová; Email: 440527@mail.muni.cz
(Received 13 April 2022; revised 26 March 2023; accepted 3 April 2023)
Abstract
The government plays first fiddle in European Union (EU) decision-making processes, but
a role in E U governance is also performed by the national parliament, which has gained
additional competence to submit reasoned opinions based on the subsidiarity principle and
participate in the political dialogue with the European Commission. The authors trace the
policy-shaping and policy-taking processes and explore the impact of parliamentary and
government involvement in E U policy-making on belated and timely transposition of E U
directives in the Czech Republic. This comparative analysis of six directives, of which three
were transposed on time and the other three from the same policy areas not, shows that the
connection between ex-ante and ex-post stages still seems weak, and thus, greater
involvement by parliament in E U affairs does not alone affect the time of transposition.
Instead, the capacity of the government, determined partly by the salience of the legislation
and its characteristics, is the main explanation for the transposition delays.
Keywords: Czech Republic; early warning mechanism; government; national parliament; political dialogue;
time of transposition
The process of European integration in general and the functioning of institutions of
the European Union (EU) and its decisionmaking, in particular, have caused
national governments to dominate in E U affairs at the expense of national
parliaments. However, thanks to the long-standing perceived democratic deficit and
the disconnect between supranational decisionmaking and national decision-taking
and oversight, parliaments have finally gained certain (individual and collective)
powers according to the Treaty of Lisbon (ToL) (Auel and Neuhold 2017). They can
now, among other things, receive proposals and annual programmes from E U
institutions and have competence within the timeframe of eight weeks to block or
delay the adoption of a legislative draft through the early warning mechanism
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the
terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.Org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits
unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
2 Hosnedlová and Pitrová
(EWM) if they perceive it breaches the subsidiarity principle (cf. art. 12 Treaty on
the European Union/TEU; Protocol no. 1 on the role of the national parliament in
the European Union).1
At this early stage, parliaments can also send a nonbinding
resolution to the European Commission (EC) on legislative and nonlegislative
initiatives within the political dialogue (PD)2
to support or raise concerns about a
particular issue at hand. Later in the policy-making process, at the national level,
they can also participate in the transposition process.
While research on the implementation of E U law is widespread (Treib 2014), it
has mainly focused on the impact of the government and administrative capacity or
the legislative characteristics for compliance with European law, either on time or
correctly. National parliaments have been rather neglected. It was supposed as a
common prerequisite that transposition is accomplished mainly through a
government decree or ministerial order (ECPRD 2019; König 2007; Steunenberg
and Rhinard 2010) or that the parliament only rubber stamps what the government
prepares. The reason is that the latter negotiates the final legislation in the Council
of the E U (hereinafter the Council) and thus is better informed about the final rules
and should be able to transpose them effectively without the involvement of other
veto players.
However, the national parliament can still play some important role both in exante
control by scrutinising the E U legislative draft or by mandating the government
for the decisionmaking in the Council (Winzen 2022) and in ex-post implementation
by amending the transposing bill (Dörrenbächer et al. 2015; Zbiral 2017; Zbiral
and Grinc 2020). Nonetheless, across the E U , the form and effectiveness of such
procedures differ considerably (cf. Auel et al. 2015; Winzen 2013; COSA C 2017, and
Gattermann and Hefftler 2015 on parliamentary oversight institutions; Börzel 2021
and ECPRD 2019 on transposition of E U law). Moreover, as demonstrated by
Sprungk (2011) and later by Finke (2019), such ex-ante participation in the policyshaping
phase hardly influences the parliament's ex-post role in the policy-taking
transposition phase if the policy-making process is long or if the parliament lacks
sufficient personal and procedural sources.
Since the introduction of P D and E W M , the prerogative of information and
insight into the negotiation process is shared with the parliaments to a greater
extent. The channel of information was made more formal and structured, managed
not only from the national level but also from the E U level. As a result, parliaments
started to scrutinise E U legislation more systematically (cf. Fromage 2020) and
strengthened other control mechanisms in E U affairs (cf. Gattermann et al. 2016;
Miklin 2017; Sprungk 2016; Winzen 2022). It might thus be expected they are better
informed and can perform transposition faster than previously assumed.
'Defining the subsidiarity principle is not always straightforward. Even though it is defined by the ToL
(art. 5(3) TEU) as any action within non-exclusive E U competences taken at the E U level that must have
sufficient added value compared to the action taken at the national, regional or local level, the interpretation
of this by national parliaments varies considerably and ranges from judging the legal basis of the proposed
legal act, through the principle of proportionality and policy substance, to the level of delegation of quasilegislative
and executive powers upon the European Commission (cf. Granat 2017; Kiiver 2012).
2
The PD between the EC and the national parliaments started in 2006 with Barroso's initiative and is
separate from the ToL. Also, it is not formally limited only to the principle of subsidiarity and works without
time limit.
Journal of Public Policy 3
The connection between the E W M and PD, compared to other parliamentary
oversight procedures, and the timely transposition of E U directives has not yet been
empirically tested, though.3
There are only normative assumptions that these E U
oversight tools can positively affect transposition of E U law (Fromage 2020). This
article, therefore, explores this question with a case study of negotiation and
transposition in the Czech Republic of six E U directives in three policy areas
adopted after the ToL came into force. Besides the role of the national parliament in
both ex-ante and ex-post legislative stages, the role of the government will also be
traced for comparison to discover whether the E W M / P D can resolve the hitherto
executive-legislative imbalance. Thus, the research question is to what extent can the
EWM/PD influence transposition, compared to otherfactors related to the roles of the
national parliament and government in the whole EU policy-making process?
This study offers three main contributions to the current academic literature.
Besides the investigation of the impact of the E W M / P D on transposition (and
the related roles of parliament and government within these policy-making
processes), the article analyses the situation i n one of the Central and Eastern
European (CEE) countries, which are generally less researched both in terms of
scrutiny mechanisms and transposition of E U law compared to the Western and
Southern Europe. Moreover, this study compares not only directives that were
transposed with a delay but also those transposed on time. Previous studies have
mainly focused on cases of delayed compliance when examining when and why it
happened (e.g. König and Luetgert 2009). Comparing examples of timely (non)
compliance can better indicate which factors influenced the delay i n
transposition and which might have not.
Nevertheless, despite this approach, this case study showed that the early
involvement of the parliament in the policy-making through the E W M or PD seems
not to have contributed principally to the timely transposition of E U law. This result
implies that both of these E U scrutiny tools encountered similar obstacles known
previously from the national oversight mechanisms, such as lengthy policy-making
processes at both the European and national levels, between which the composition of
the government or parliament can change, or insufficient parliamentary procedures that
can link both ex-ante and ex-post stages. Moreover, both the negotiation and
transposition of E U directives still depend mostly on the administrative capacity of the
government rather than parliament. On the contrary, political factors, such as the party
composition of the parliament and government and their positions vis-a-vis the EU, did
not appear to play significant role in this study.
The analysis and results will be presented in the following steps: first, the literature on
the role of national parliaments in E U politics and on the implementation of E U law will
be discussed briefly to outline the research field. The specifics of the research design and
case selection will be explained in the next two parts. Finally, the results will be
interpreted. The concluding section summarises the article and presents suggestions for
further research.
3
The first attempt was carried out in a master's thesis, written by one of the authors (P. Hosnedlova), on
which this article is based.
4 Hosnedlova and Pitrova
From scrutinisers to policy-shapers?
National parliaments can perform several roles and exercise several functions either at the
national or at the European level, be it representation, deliberation/communication and
legislation/policy-making (Cooper 2012), or scrutiny/control of the national government
and cooperation with other (supranational and international) actors (Kinski 2021;
Sprungk 2016). The multilevel governance of the E U has, however, presented some
challenges for the accomplishment of these roles since the 1980s, after the first direct
elections to the European Parliament (EP), and until the 2000s, no significant formal role
was assigned to parliaments. Governments, which often represent the country at the
supranational/international level and prepare transposition measures later at home (if
necessary), naturally dominate in E U affairs over national legislative bodies.
Yet, over time parliaments have gradually tried to get involved, first by strengthening
their national oversight institutions (Winzen 2012) and since the ToL also through the
E U mechanisms (Miklin 2017). Much attention has been devoted to the institutional
capacity of parliaments and their motivations to scrutinise E U affairs by mandating the
government or discussing E U issues either in plenary sessions, E U committees or
sectoral committees (Auel et al. 2015; Finke and Dannwolf 2013; Gattermann and
Hefftler 2015; Winzen 2013), similar to the consequences of the introduction of the
E W M / P D and other post-Lisbon (international) parliamentary roles on the functioning
of national legislative bodies (Auel and Neuhold 2017; Cooper 2012; Gattermann et al.
2016; Hogenauer and Neuhold 2015). In last decade, there were also some attempts to
connect national scrutiny mechanisms to another role that parliaments can perform transposition
of European law into national law (Finke and Dannwolf 2015; Sprungk
2011) - and to question how the executive-legislative (im)balance might have been
recalibrated by the new powers given to parliaments (Fromage 2020).
Within the implementation of E U law, parliaments act as one of the veto players,
beside the government and its administrative bodies (Steunenberg 2007), subnational
actors, such as regions and their government bodies (Paasch and Stecker 2021), and
interest groups (Falkner et al. 2005), all of which may be able to constrain and delay
smooth transposition. For parliaments to play an effective role in transposition therefore
requires well-developed and strong ex-ante scrutiny (Finke 2019; Sprungk 2011), by
which members of parliament (MPs) can get sufficient information on legislative drafts
and the positions the government intends to defend in Brussels and possibly bring them
in line with MPs' views. This can help later in (timely/correct) transposition (Finke
2019), but only if (1) the actors remain identical, (2) little time elapses during the whole
(ex-ante and ex-post) E U policy-making process, and (3) the implementing actors are
adequately involved in policy-shaping (Sprungk 2011). Such active participation in E U
policy-making also depends on intensive cooperation between domestic and European
actors, such as the lower chamber with the upper chamber or sectoral committees with
the E U affairs committee (Sprungk 2016).
However, early involvement by the parliament does not always have a positive
impact on transposition, as it can also trigger unintended conflict between opposing
interests at the ex-ante stage, which can later hinder proper transposition (Finke and
Dannwolf 2015). In addition, the role of the parliament depends greatly on other
independent factors that can influence the results of implementation, in particular
the outcome of negotiations at the E U level in terms of the government position and
Journal of Public Policy 5
voting, formulation of legislative acts (Zhelyazkova 2013) in specific policy areas
and the later transposition measures (Haverland et al. 2011), which can take the
form of government regulation, ministerial ordinance or statutory law.
While there are already some studies on the interlink between ex-ante and ex-post
stages of E U policy-making processes, they have mainly focused on the role of the
government or on national parliamentary scrutiny mechanisms. Empirical and
systematic testing has not yet been carried out on the effect of the E W M / P D , which
strengthened and equalised the national parliaments (and their chambers), but their use
can be determined by factors that similarly affect national control mechanisms
(cf. Gattermann and Hefftler 2015 vs. Winzen 2013; Auel et al. 2015; Sprungk 2016).
The reason for the dearth of research may be the widespread sceptical view that the
E W M cannot influence the final decision taken by the E U institutions (cf. de Wilde
2012; de Wilde and Raunio 2018; Raunio 2010). Nevertheless, few articles have already
come to the conclusion that the E W M can be taken into account during the E U
decisionmaking even though it does not reach the necessary threshold of the dissenting
parliaments (e.g. Cooper 2019). Similarly, several studies also showed that the positions
expressed by the parliament in reasoned opinions or PD resolutions are often in line
with the position of the government on the particular legal act (cf. BororiskaHryniewiecka
and Grinc 2022; Cornell and Goldoni 2017), which might be positively
reflected later in the transposition process.
Research design
To investigate this question, we traced the policy-making process (i.e. the
mechanisms that function between the negotiation of the directive at the E U level
and its transposition in the Czech Republic) starting with the writing of E C
legislative drafts, their consultation by both chambers of the bicameral parliament the
Chamber of Deputies (ChofD)/Poslanecká sněmovna as a lower chamber, and
Senate/Senát as an upper chamber4
in the Czech Republic - through the
deliberations of the Council,5
to the national process for adoption of transposition
measure(s),6
and focused primarily on the variables specified below.
4
According to the Constitution of the Czech Republic (art. 10b), both parliamentary chambers are equal
in authority over E U affairs, despite some procedural nuances specified in their rules of procedures.
Moreover, the EWM/PD itself provides for equal rights for all parliamentary chambers in E U member states
(Granat 2017). Therefore, the study focused on both chambers, even though the Senate is weaker in national
politics because its decisions on legislation can be overturned by the lower chamber and it does not have a
direct link to the national or the regional government(s).
5
The EP was not included in the analysis even though it participated in adopting all the directives in our
study. The reason is that the members of the EP are not formally connected to the national government or
parliament on a regular basis in the Czech Republic, especially as compared to the government
representatives in the Council.
6
The transposition process in the Czech Republic follows the "ordinary" national legislative procedure for
adopting legal acts. That means that the bill is prepared by a ministry, and before it is adopted by the
government, it has to go first through the inter-ministerial consultation procedure and then through a
review by the Legislative Council of the government at the expert level. After that, it is first debated and
voted on in the lower chamber in three readings, within which sectoral committees can prepare
amendment(s), and then, the Senate can either adopt, not act at all, propose amendment(s), or reject what
the ChofD previously adopted. However, for the implementation of EU legislation (be it regulation, directive
6 Hosnedlová and Pitrová
Since the subject of the article is the impact of the actions of the parliament and
government on the amount of time taken for transposition when both can be
involved in the decision-shaping and decision-taking stages, we analysed, mainly
qualitatively, factors related to both powers. Specifically, and during the policymaking/implementation
process (cf. Falkner et al. 2005, 6; Treib 2014, 6), the
analysis focused on six factors: (1) The ex-ante parliamentary opinion of both
chambers (and their committees) on each E U legislative proposal sent in the form of
a reasoned opinion or as part of the PD (if available in the IPEX/online database for
inter-parliamentary exchange or in databases of the Czech Parliament, and
crosschecked also in the EC's reports both on relations with national parliaments
and on subsidiarity and proportionality). (2) The position of the government as
stated in the framework document indicating the salience of the act for the
government (obtained either by personal request or by a manual search on Google).7
(3) The vote of the government in the Council on the final version of the directive
(tracked by the VoteWatch portal - currently available in Hix et al. 2022),8
predicting the final national support for the particular act. Later, we considered also
(4) the ex-post involvement of the parliamentary committees of both chambers,9
(5)
the plenary debates on formulating and adopting the transposition measures, and
(6) the number and types of measures for transposition1 0
adopted after the directive
came into effect (specified either in the EUR-Lex database or in the national table of
concordance), indicating how complex the transposition was (Borghetto et al. 2006;
Haverland et al. 2011). In addition to tracking both the E U and national procedures
via document analysis, semi-structured interviews were carried out (in 2019) with
two officials from the analytical department on E U affairs of the Senate, and one
questionnaire was sent to the equivalent department in the ChofD, to triangulate the
information on the ex-ante and ex-post stages.11
The article examines the transposition time rather than its correctness, which is
harder to measure. Therefore, our main interests are when the transposition process
was completed, whether it complied with the transposition deadline required by the
directive, and whether the infringement procedure (according to Art. 258-260 of the
Treaty on the functioning of the EU/TFEU) was launched. A real-time analysis of
when the transposition was completed is quite a challenging task because of
insufficient data from the EC and EUR-Lex, which has been recognised in previous
or other acts), there are specific rules setting the requirements for the preparation of the transposition
measures, the monitoring of their implementation, notification to the EC and, among others, the timing in
relation to the transposition deadline specifying when the bill should be sent to the consultation procedure
(11 months before the transposition deadline in case of the status as the main transposition measures, and
four months before for the government regulation) and to the government (nine months and two months,
respectively) in order to ensure correct and timely compliance (Methodological guidelines for fulfilling
legislative obligations arising from the membership of the Czech Republic in the European Union 2018).
7
The proposal of the E U act can be given either national priority (high), important priority (intermediate)
or be followed priority (the low).
8
Whether the government voted for or against the final E U act.
9
Which committees (either for E U affairs or sectoral) were involved in transposition compared to those
involved in ex-ante scrutiny.
1 0
It can be either a legal act requiring parliamentary approval or government regulation or ministerial
ordinance without parliamentary involvement.
u
Detailed information on the interviews and questionnaire can be found in the online appendix (part 2).
Journal of Public Policy 7
studies (König and Luetgert 2009; Zhelyazkova et al. 2017, 222). O n the one hand,
the EC does not have the capacity to follow all cases of noncompliance and therefore
chooses strategically to follow only those for which it has a good chance of success in
litigation (cf. König and Mäder 2014). O n the other hand, in the Eur-lex database, it
is not always clear which transposition measures are the first and final acts that
started and completed the whole implementation, respectively. Therefore, we
decided to combine the transposition instruments adopted between the approval of
the final version of the directive and the transposition deadline as identified in EURLex
and/or the national transposition tables,1 2
together with the infringement
procedures launched by the E C against the Czech Republic according to the Reports
of the Government representative for the Czech cases before the Court of Justice of
the E U (CJEU). That means that if no infringement procedure was started against
the transposition of a particular legal act after the transposition deadline, we
consider it as transposition on time.
Besides these formal procedural milestones, the party composition of the
government and parliament in terms of majority/minority versus opposition and
their positions on the E U were traced during the ex-ante and ex-post stages because
they might have had an impact on the E W M / P D (Auel et al. 2015) or on the
transposition (see Dörrenbächer et al. 2015 for relations between executive and
legislative bodies; Börzel 2021 for Euroscepticism). However, such effects do not
always have the expected influence. For instance, higher (party/public)
Euroscepticism does not necessarily lead to more opinions expressed within the
E W M / P D framework (Borohska-Hryniewiecka and Grinc 2022) or to more
noncompliance (Toshkov 2019). Rather, the opposite can happen. In this article, the
level of party Euroscepticism was measured according to the results of the Chapel
Hill expert survey (CHES) for 2010, 2014 and 2019, between which the ex-ante and
ex-post stages of policy-making of the analysed E U directives took place. We ranked
the positions of the Czech political parties on the E U according to the mean values
of the "EU_position" variable, defined by the CHES codebook as "overall
orientation of the party leadership toward European integration" on a 7-point scale.
Case selection
The Czech Republic has been chosen as a case study for several objective reasons,
besides the familiarity of the case to the authors, and ease of access to national
sources. Firstly, the two chambers of the Czech Parliament belong to one of the most
active national parliaments sending its PDs or reasoned opinions to the E U
(cf. Borohska-Hryniewiecka and Grinc 2022; European Commission 2010-2020a;
European Parliament 2017, 21-24; Grinc 2015; Hrabalek and Strelkov 2015, 502-
503),1 3
despite its relatively moderate oversight institutions for E U affairs (cf. Auel
et al. 2015; Karlas 2011; Winzen 2013, 2022). At the same time, the Czech Republic,
1 2
The transposition tables were downloaded via Google or sent by request from the ministry responsible
for the transposition.
1 3
The involvement of both chambers of the Czech Parliament in the E U scrutiny processes in comparison
to the other national parliaments of the current 27 E U member states between 2010 and 2020 is
demonstrated in the online appendix (part 3).
8 Hosnedlová and Pitrová
together with Poland, represents an exceptional case among the "new" member
states in terms of (non) compliance because both countries struggle with a high
number of infringement procedures compared to other countries from the eastern
enlargement (cf. European Commission 2010-2020b; Borzel and Sedelmeier 2017;
Borzel 2021). For a long time, the Czech Republic has found itself around (and in
last six years, above) the E U average for infringement cases (including late
transposition) (cf. European Commission 2010-2020b; Single Market Scoreboard
2020). It holds a middle to lower position also for other characteristics, such as the
functioning of the (government) coordination mechanism for E U affairs (Jensen
2014; Panke 2010; Perarnaud 2022) and bureaucratic capacity (Borzel 2021),
including parliamentary administration (Hogenauer and Neuhold 2015).
Thanks to its middling status, the Czech Republic might reflect average
characteristics for compliance among the E U member states. However, due to
differences between countries in the length of E U membership, the Czech
Republic can instead represent the smaller group, in particular that of the C E E /
Visegrád countries (cf. also Borohska-Hryniewiecka and Grinc 2022), whose
oversight institutions are relatively strong (Karlas 2011) and whose compliance
performance is overall better than in Western/Southern Europe (Zhelyazkova
et al. 2017).
But, in general, the Czech Republic has rarely been a subject of implementation
research, except for studies of all 27 member states (such as Toshkov 2012 and
Zhelyazkova et al. 2017), similar to the rest of the CEE. There have also been some
(separate) studies comparing the Czech Republic with other countries on the E W M /
PD (Borohska-Hryniewiecka and Grinc 2022; Granat 2017), other tools of
parliamentary scrutiny (Finke and Dannwolf 2013), transposition of directives
(Zbiral 2017; Zbiral and Grinc 2020), and compliance with E U law (Falkner 2010),
and a few individual analyses on implementation of specific policies (such as Baun
and Marek 2013). Again, however, nobody has linked both stages of policy-making
and tried to empirically investigate an impact of the ex-ante stage with E W M / P D on
the ex-post transposition of several E U legislative acts.
Three policy areas - public health (health risks), transport and economic policy
(financial intervention), from which six directives were thoroughly examined - were
selected for having the highest number of infringement procedures launched against
the Czech Republic. This is tracked by annual Reports on activities of the
Government representative for the representation of the Czech Republic before
the CJEU.
The research focused on directives because by definition they set a common E U wide
goal, but the forms and measures for their implementation are, to a certain
extent, left in the hands of national policymakers. Thus, compared to regulations,
there is some room for manoeuvre that needs to be filled and takes some time.
Moreover, the selected directives were to have been adopted after the entry into
force of the ToL to ensure that the E W M was already in place. They also were to be
negotiated through the ordinary legislative procedure (OLP, according to art. 289
and 294 TFEU), which allows a dissenting member state to vote against the final act
(because qualified majority voting is applied), which might later cause a delay in
transposition (Thomson 2010). The OLP also gives national parliaments more
power to potentially trigger not only a yellow but also an orange card within the
Journal of Public Policy 9
E W M , which would require the resolution of the case not only by the EC but also by
both the Council and the EP, and thus might be more attractive for parliaments than
a special legislative procedure.
We compared three directives that missed their transposition deadlines with
three directives that the Czech legislature managed to transpose on time, i.e. no
infringement procedure was initiated. Each policy area is thus represented by two
directives, one for delayed and one for timely transposition. The delayed directives
were selected according to the gravity of the infringement procedure in terms of the
years of duration and/or the highest stage the infringement procedure reached,
according to the Government reports on the Czech cases before the CJEU. Our main
interest was to focus on serious infringement cases and look on the effect of the
E W M / P D on them. The timely transposed directives were selected in the same
policy areas according to the dates of their adoption at the E U level, which should
have been in proximity to dates of the adoption of the directives that were not
transposed on time. Such conditions shall ensure that the composition of the
government and/or parliament in either of the two stages is the same or similar, in
order to mitigate the effect of parliamentary elections or reshuffling of the
government, which can change their preferences in regard to E U legislation and
cause discontinuity as well as accountability and legitimacy problems in E U policymaking
process (König 2007).
However, the selection criteria were not helpful in our analysis for two reasons.
Firstly, the E U policy-making process, from the E C draft through its adoption at the
European level to its implementation at the national level, is quite lengthy and can
thus last longer than one four-year parliamentary term (applicable in the Czech
Republic). Secondly, the unstable domestic political landscape, which is
characteristic of the post-communist states like the Czech Republic in particular,
can influence the process as well. Therefore, we were able to maintain similar
conditions for the government and parliamentary composition between the cases,
but not for the individual cases. As a result, we included these changes in the
analysis since the shifts in government and the composition of parliament can be
two important factors determining the nature of both the earlier parliamentary
involvement (Auel et al. 2015; Gattermann and Hefftler 2015) and the transposition
outcome (Dörrenbächer et al. 2015; Falkner et al. 2005).
The list of selected directives and their main characteristics is presented in
Table 1. The formulation of the directives is considered an initial premise to be later
confronted with the results of the analysis. As shown by previous studies, the
novelty/amendment of the directive, its complexity (Kaeding 2008; Zhelyazkova
2013) and/or length of time for transposition (Borghetto et al. 2006; Haverland et al.
2011) can impose potential limits for smooth/timely transposition and therefore it's
good to keep these characteristics in mind.1 4
1 4
We could also select directives according to their legal characteristics or number of reasoned opinions/
PD's resolutions to bring more variability into the dataset. However, we wanted to stick to the infringement
procedures as a baseline for selection of the cases, according to which other characteristics followed.
10 Hosnedlovä and Pitrovä
Table 1. List of analysed directives and their main characteristics
Directives in
analysis
Directive
2014/40/EU
(Tobacco
directive)
Directive
2013/35/EU
(Directive on
electromagnetic
fields)
Directive Directive
2012/34/EU 2014/46/EU
(Railway (Registration
directive) directive)
Directive
2014/59/EU
(Directive on
recovery of
crisis)
Directive (EU)
2017/2399
(Directive
on debt
instruments)
Policy area
Novelty of the
directive
Policy complexity
(in terms of
number of
recitals)15
Duration of
transposition
deadline
(in months)
Status of
transposition
(delayed or on
time) in the
Czech
Republic
Health risk
New (Replaced
the previous
one)
60
25
Health risk Transport
Delayed
New (Repealed New
the previous
one)
23 87
36
On time
31
Delayed
Transport
Amendment
Financial
intervention
New (Changed
several
previous)
133
37
On time Delayed
Financial
intervention
Amendment
17
12
On time
Source: Authors.
Discussion of the results
To answer the questions as to whether and how the involvement of the parliament
in the E W M and/or P D can lead to timely transposition, compared to the
government, we analysed the procedural, political and legislative indicators, the first
two of which are summarised in Table 2 (the third set of factors is in Table 1 above).
The complete qualitative analysis can be found in the online supplementary
materials (part 1). Only systematic analysis of administrative and informal
procedures and practices was left out as it would require more in-depth data.
After the thorough examination, however, the results show that the original
assumption that the early involvement of the national parliament through the
E W M / P D facilitates timely transposition was not confirmed. The participation of
both chambers in the early scrutiny of the draft of the directive, through the
submission of their resolutions mainly within the PD (a reasoned opinion for the
subsidiarity check was successfully raised only for the tobacco directive), seems not
to be sufficient for timely transposition. The directives that were transposed on time
gained much less attention from both parliamentary chambers during their
negotiation at the E U level than those that missed their deadlines.
One problem in discontinuity is that the ex-ante scrutiny of E U legislative drafts
is primarily in the hands of specialised E U parliamentary committees (EAC) in both
Czech chambers, which are not, however, part of the later "ordinary" national
legislative procedure that applies to the transposition process in the Czech Republic,
1 5
Novelty is easy to trace as it is often indicated by, or it is obvious from, the legal act itself. But for
complexity, several methodologies exist - see Franchino (2007) for measuring discretion and related
constraints provided by the directive to the member states, and also Kaeding (2008, 597, 600) and
Steunenberg and Rhinard (2010, 501-502) for broader discussion. We chose to count the number of recitals
as a widely used indicator of policy complexity that might reflect how difficult the transposition will be
(Finke 2019; Paasch and Stecker 2021; Zhelyazkova 2013, 711-712; Zhelyazkova et al. 2017, 226-227).
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X23000132 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Table 2. Summary of procedural and political factors traced in the analysis
1) Scrutiny of the pro- 3) Composition of
posed EU directive by parliament and 6) Composition of
EU Directive the national parlia- government in parliament and 7) Difficulty of domestic
(with a specification ment (incl. committees 2) Position of the ex-ante stage 5) Parliamentary government in ex-post transposition (in
of dates for of both chambers) government on (number of 4) Government's committees stage (number of terms of the number
proposal, adoption through the EWM or the legislative parliamentary seats vote in the involved in the parliamentary seats in and types of transpoand
transposition) PD draft in parentheses) Council16
transposition parentheses) sition measures)
Tobacco directive
(Delayed)
Proposed in 12/2012
Adopted in 4/2014
Transposition
deadline: 5/2016
Directive on
electromagnetic
fields
(On time)
Proposed in 6/2011
Adopted in 6/2013
Transposition
deadline: 7/2016
By both chambers:
Reasoned opinion of
the ChofD
PD's opinion of the
Senate
(The ChofD's health
committee was
informed about the
position of the EU
committee)
Important issue
No opinion of either
chamber was detected
The ChofD's EU
committee only
formally took into
account the legislative
draft
Important issue
2012-2013 ChofD: CSSD For
(56), ODS (53), TOP09
(41), KSCM (26), W (24)
Government: ODS,
TOP09, W (118);
Caretaker
(7/2013-1/2014)
Senate: opposition parties
in majority
10/2013-2014 ChofD: CSSD
(50), ANO (47), KSCM
(33), TOP09 (26), ODS
(16), Dawn (14), KDU-CSL
(14) Government: CSSD,
ANO, KDU-CSL (111)
Senate: coalition parties in
majority
CSSD (56), ODS (53), For
TOP09 (41), KSCM (26),
VV (24)
Government: ODS, TOP09,
VV (118)
Senate: opposition parties
in majority
The agriculture
committees and
health committees
in both the ChofD
and Senate
The committee on
regional
development,
public
administration
and environment
in the Senate
CSSD (50), ANO (47),
KSCM (33), TOP09
(26), ODS (16), Dawn
(14), KDU-CSL (14)
Government: CSSD,
ANO, KDU-CSL (111)
Senate: coalition parties
in majority
7-10/2013: CSSD (56),
ODS (53), TOP09 (41),
KSCM (26), VV (24)
Government: caretaker
(7/2013-1/2014)
10/2013-2016: CSSD
(50), ANO (47), KSCM
(33), TOP09 (26), ODS
(16), Dawn (14), KDUCSL
(14)
Government: CSSD,
ANO, KDU-CSL (111)
Senate: coalition parties
in majority
Seven transposition
measures: four legal
acts (one was new,
the others were
revisions), three new
ministerial
ordinances
Three transposition
measures: one new
government
regulation, two
revisions of legal
acts (adopted by
the parliament)
o
s
s
s
a-
{Continued)
1 6
Finally, there is no variability, but the variable was not preselected and thus the results were detected later in the analysis. Therefore, we decided to preserve it.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X23000132 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Table 2. (Continued)
1) Scrutiny of the pro- 3) Composition of
posed EU directive by parliament and 6) Composition of
EU Directive the national parlia- government in parliament and 7) Difficulty of domestic
(with a specification ment (incl. committees 2) Position of the ex-ante stage 5) Parliamentary government in ex-post transposition (in
of dates for of both chambers) government on (number of 4) Government's committees stage (number of terms of the number
proposal, adoption through the EWM or the legislative parliamentary seats vote in the involved in the parliamentary seats in and types of transpoand
transposition) PD draft in parentheses) Council transposition parentheses) sition measures)
Railway directive By both chambers High priority CSSD (56), ODS (53), For The Economic 2012-2013: CSSD (56), Six transposition
(Delayed) (however, the Senate TOP09 (41), KSCM (26), committees in ODS (53), TOP09 (41), measures: four legal
Proposed in 9/2010 responded to the VV (24) both chambers KSCM (26), W (24) acts (of which two
Adopted in 11/2012 Communication on the Government: ODS, TOP09, Government: ODS, were new) and two
Transposition legislative draft and VV (118) TOP09, W (118) new ministerial
deadline: 6/2015 both the EU committee Senate: opposition parties Caretaker ordinances
and the committee on in majority (7/2013-1/2014)
economics, agriculture 10/2013-2015: CSSD
and transport adopted (50), ANO (47), KSCM
their own positions, (33), TOP09 (26), ODS
while the ChofD's EU (16), Dawn (14),
Committee focused on KDU-CSL (14)
the legislative draft Government: CSSD,
itself and referred its ANO, KDU-CSL (111)
resolution to the Senate: coalition parties
committee on in majority
economic affairs for
information)
ChofD's resolution on the
draft of the directive
adopted outside the
subsidiarity checks as
well as PD1 7
PD's opinion of the
Senate
Registration directive The Senate adopted a Important issue 2012-2013: CSSD (56), ODS For - CSSD (50), ANO (47), Three transposition
(On time) resolution within the (53), TOP09 (41), KSCM KSCM (33), TOP09 measures: two legal
Proposed in 7/2012 PD (26), VV (24) (26), ODS (16), Dawn acts (both were
Adopted in 4/2014 The ChofD's EU Government: ODS, TOP09, (14), KDU-CSL (14) revisions) and one
Transposition Committee only took VV (118); Government: CSSD, ministerial
deadline: 5/2017 the draft into account Caretaker (7/2013-1/2014) ANO, KDU-CSL (111) ordinance (revising
Senate: opposition parties Senate: coalition parties the previous one)
in majority in majority
[Continued)
1 7
However, it was adopted within the eight-week ('subsidiarity') period.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X23000132 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Table 2. (Continued)
1) Scrutiny of the pro- 3) Composition of
posed EU directive by parliament and 6) Composition of
EU Directive the national parlia- government in parliament and 7) Difficulty of domestic
(with a specification ment (incl. committees 2) Position of the ex-ante stage 5) Parliamentary government in ex-post transposition (in
of dates for of both chambers) government on (number of 4) Government's committees stage (number of terms of the number
proposal, adoption through the EWM or the legislative parliamentary seats vote in the involved in the parliamentary seats in and types of transpoand
transposition) PD draft in parentheses) Council transposition parentheses) sition measures)
Directive on recovery
of crisis
(Delayed)
Proposed in 6/2012
Adopted in 5/2014
Transposition
deadline: 12/2014
Directive on debt
instruments
By both chambers:
PD's opinions of both the
ChofD18
and the
Senate19
(In the Senate, the EU
committee asked the
committee on
economics, agriculture
and transport for its
resolution)
High priority
No opinion of either of
the chambers was
Important issue
10/2013-2014: CSSD (50),
ANO (47), KSCM (33),
TOP09 (26), ODS (16),
Dawn (14), KDU-CSL (14)
Government: CSSD, ANO,
KDU-CSL (111)
Senate: coalition parties in
majority
2012-2013: CSSD (56), ODS For
(53), TOP09 (41), KSCM
(26), W (24)
Government: ODS, TOP09,
VV (118)
Caretaker (7/2013-1/2014)
Senate: opposition parties
in majority
10/2013-2014: CSSD (50),
ANO (47), KSCM (33),
TOP09 (26), ODS (16),
Dawn (14), KDU-CSL
(14)
Government: CSSD, ANO,
KDU-CSL (111)
Senate: coalition parties in
majority
CSSD (50), ANO (47), KSCM For
(33), TOP09 (26), ODS
The Budget
committee in the
ChofD
The Economic
committee in the
Senate
CSSD (50), ANO (47),
KSCM (33), TOP09
(26), ODS (16), Dawn
(14), KDU-CSL (14)
Government: CSSD,
ANO, KDU-CSL (111)
Senate: coalition parties
in majority
ANO (78), ODS (25),
Pirates (22), SPD (22),
Two transposition
measures: one new
and one revised
legal act
o
s
s
s
a{Continued)
~
1 8
In its resolution, the ChofD committee for E U affairs explicitly called for the reasoned opinion but its resolution was adopted after the required eight-week period.
1 9
The Senate's E U committee proposed a reasoned opinion but only the opinion of the full Senate's plenary is valid and, in the latter case, was not achieved in time.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X23000132 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Table 2. (Continued)
1) Scrutiny of the pro- 3) Composition of
posed EU directive by parliament and 6) Composition of
EU Directive the national parlia- government in parliament and 7) Difficulty of domestic
(with a specification ment (incl. committees 2) Position of the ex-ante stage 5) Parliamentary government in ex-post transposition (in
of dates for of both chambers) government on (number of 4) Government's committees stage (number of terms of the number
proposal, adoption through the EWM or the legislative parliamentary seats vote in the involved in the parliamentary seats in and types of transpoand
transposition) PD draft in parentheses) Council transposition parentheses) sition measures)
(On time) detected (16), Dawn (14), KSCM (15), CSSD (15), Two transposition
Proposed in 11/2016 The ChofD's EU KDU-CSL (14) KDU-CSL (10), TOP09 measures amending
Adopted in 12/2017 committee only took Government: CSSD, ANO, (7), STAN (6) legal acts
Transposition the draft into account KDU-CSL (111) Government: 12/2017-6/
deadline: 12/2018 Senate: coalition parties in
majority
2018: minority with
ANO (78)
6-12/2018: ANO, CSSD
(93, supported by 15
MPs from KSCM)
Senate: coalition parties
in majority
o
CD
<
P
o
<p>
Source: Authors.
Notes: Based on three Chapel Hill expert surveys (2010, 2014, 2019), STAN (Mayors and Independents), TOP09 (liberal conservatives), KDU-CSL (Christian Democrats), Pirates, CSSD (Social
Democrats), W (entrepreneurs) and ANO (centrist populists) were in favour of the EU (mean position around the values 6.5-5.0, respectively); ODS (conservatives) somewhat opposed (mean: 3.2);
KSCM (Communists) rather opposed (mean: 2.5); and Dawn/SPD (right-wing populists) opposed (mean: 1.9). Data from all three surveys were available for the CSSD, KSCM, TOP09, KDU-CSL and ODS,
from which mean values were calculated. For ANO and Dawn/SPD, only data from 2014 and 2019 exist, from which their mean positions were calculated. For W, data are only from 2010, and for
Pirates and STAN, only from 2019.
Accordingly, a government led by the soft Eurosceptic ODS was put together with pro-European TOP09 and W (overall mean position from the CHES around 5). The government of CSSD, ANO and
KDU-CSL was pro-European (overall mean position from the CHES: 5.7). The government of ANO and CSSD was also pro-European (overall mean position: 5.4) but supported by hard Eurosceptic
KSCM (all three together ranked rather neutral with an overall mean position 4.4). In the first two governments, the chairmen of the ChofD's EU committee were from the government party; however,
at the time of the less pro-EU government, the chairman was from soft Eurosceptic party ODS, and at the time of the more pro-EU government, the chairman was from the small pro-EU government
party KDU-CSL. The composition of the EAC always reflected the composition of the parliament (i.e. ODS (6), CSSD (5), TOP09 (3), KSCM (2) and W (2); ANO (9), CSSD (6), KSCM (3), TOP09 (2), KDU-CSL
(2), ODS (2) and Dawn (1)).
In Senate, the period 2010-2012 was dominated by opposition parties (however, the EAC was led by the governing ODS with a pro-EU majority); the period 2013-2017 was dominated by coalition
parties (the EAC was led by the governing KDU-CSL with a pro-EU majority), and the period 2018-2020 was dominated by opposition parties.
Journal of Public Policy 15
similarly to several other member states (cf. E C P R D 2019). The rules of procedure
for both chambers only determine their early involvement in E U affairs, including
the E U policy-making process and ex-ante scrutiny of the government (Rules of
procedure of the Chamber of Deputies, 1995, par. 109; the Standing rules of the
Senate, par. 119). In the Senate, the E A C prepares the draft resolution and can
consult relevant sectoral committees, although in practice this happens less than
fifty per cent of the time (cf. Grinc 2015, 251). The final resolution must be adopted
by the entire Senate with a debate in the plenary session. In the ChofD, the
beginning of the procedure is the same, but the debate in the plenary is not necessary
and is held only when a legislative file is politically significant (cf. Hrabalek and
Strelkov 2015), such as the draft of the directive on the recovery of crisis in our
analysis. The sectoral committees, in general, are rarely involved in the E W M / P D
(as compared to the normal legislative procedure), and when they were involved in
our cases (the directives on tobacco, railways, and recovery of crisis), the
transposition was delayed. Neither the limited personal continuity between both
stages of E U policy-making, which occurred in the case of delayed transposition of
tobacco and railway directives, helped to avoid delay in transposition. Therefore,
there is almost no involvement of the implementing actors in policy-shaping, which
contradicts another necessary condition for the effective participation of the
parliament in E U policy-making (Sprungk 2011). The representatives of the
analytical department for E U affairs in the Senate who we interviewed confirmed an
effort to more regularly stress the ex-ante stage during the ex-post stage in the
future.
The insufficient role of the parliament throughout the policy-making process
may be also connected with, and indicated by, the characteristics of the legislation.
In our cases, the directives for which the parliament was not involved in the scrutiny
(namely on electromagnetic fields, registration of vehicles, and debt instruments)
were mostly revisions of the previous directives, were technical and not complex (in
terms of the number of recitals). Such characteristics can, by themselves, facilitate
timely transposition (as Borghetto et al. 2006 and Kaeding 2008 found previously).
As for the transposition deadline, it was sometimes helpful, sometimes not. In two
of the timely transposed cases (the directives on electromagnetic fields and
registration of vehicles), the transposition deadline was sufficiently long (around
three years), whereas in the case of the railway directive, 31 months was not enough
to avoid the delay in transposition.
Regarding the number and type of transposition instruments, the timely
transposed directives required fewer transposition measures than the delayed
transposed directives, which were instead converted into national law by new
statutory acts, amending acts, and ministry ordinances (as predicted and confirmed
by König and Luetgert 2009, for instance). Only the directive on the recovery of
crisis was exceptional because it was transposed after the transposition deadline but
with only a few transposition measures (new ones, though). Again, the number and
type of transposition measures can be related to the characteristics of the directive,
and thus, all these factors can affect the time of transposition.
Still, the parliament seemed not to be the main actor for the time taken for
transposition. Instead, the time of transposition was determined by the capacity of
the government to propose the transposition measures well in advance of the
16 Hosnedlova and Pitrova
transposition deadlines, according to the national transposition rules, which
Sprungk (2013) also concluded is an important factor for timely transposition.
Positive votes for the final versions of the directives by the government in the
Council, which occurred in all cases, did not indicate how well the later
transposition would proceed, which is again in line with previous findings (e.g.
Toshkov 2011, 11). The degree of importance assigned to the E U legislative file by
the government in negotiations was better associated with late transposition. In our
analysis, the proposals for directives designated of high (national) priority in the
early stage (specifically, the directives on railways and on the recovery of crisis) were
more complicated and experienced delayed transposition. However, the tobacco
directive, which was transposed after the deadline, was an "important issue" for the
government, similarly to all three cases transposed on time.
Quite surprisingly and counter-intuitively, the composition of both parliamentary
chambers and government between and within both stages of policy-making, affected
by early/regular elections or by reshuffles in the government, and their positions toward
the E U , were not found to be significant factors. Neither the majority pro-European
government, which remained stable throughout the entire transposition period (as in
the cases of delayed transposition of the tobacco directive and directive on the recovery
of crisis), nor changes in the government due to elections or reshuffling during the
transposition period (as in the cases of timely transposition of the directives on
electromagnetic fields and debt instruments) seem to have affected the amount of time
necessary for transposition. The effects of changes in government and parliament
between ex-ante scrutiny and ex-post transposition are difficult to assess because for the
analysed cases of both timely and late transposition neither the parliament nor the
government remained entirely unchanged. We might assume that, in line with
Sprungk's (2011) suggestion, when the occupants of policy-making positions change
and a long time passes between the phases of E U policy-making, the connection
between ex-ante scrutiny and ex-post transposition is weak Nevertheless, these
conditions are not always necessary because, as our case study showed, the positions of
the parliamentary chambers toward the E U legislative draft often coincided with the
position of the government, even though one parliamentary chamber (the Senate) was
led by opposition parties. Such a consensual politics can later help with timely
transposition irrespective of the changes in parliamentary and government composition.
This did not, however, materialise in our cases.
Conclusions
The imbalance of power between governments and parliaments in E U affairs is a
long-standing question that has attracted the interest of several researchers and
practical reforms seeking to strengthen the parliamentary role. The ToL, which took
one step in this direction by encouraging greater involvement of national
parliaments in the decision-making stage, could affect another role parliaments
perform in E U affairs, namely the transposition of E U law into national law, which
can be another obstacle to the smooth running of E U affairs due to frequent delays.
To date, however, both stages of E U policy-making were researched separately,
without considering the connection between them.
Journal of Public Policy 17
Based on the case study of the Czech Republic in the negotiation and
transposition of six E U directives from three policy areas, our study explored this
problem and found that the empowerment of the parliament in policy-making
through the E W M or PD seems to be negligible for the timely transposition of E U
secondary law. In the cases where at least one parliamentary chamber was involved
in the scrutiny of the E U legislative draft, delayed transposition later occurred,
contrary to the initial expectation. The main reason for this appeared to be the
distribution of tasks between the parliamentary committees on the E U , which
almost exclusively participated in the ex-ante stage, and the sectoral committees,
which rarely dealt with E U legislative drafts and instead tended to focus more on the
ex-post stage. Even in those cases where the sectoral parliamentary committees were
involved in both phases, the transposition was not completed on time. Hence,
despite the high ambitions for the role of parliaments after the ToL, the legislature's
position remains relatively marginal in the Czech Republic compared to the
executive.
The government still seems to hold the reins of E U policies because it takes the
final decision in the Council, and after that, it prepares the proposals of the
transposition instruments, which may or may not be adopted by the parliament. O n
the other hand, the personal discontinuity caused by elections or reshuffling of the
government during the long negotiation and transposition processes did not play a
significant role. Rather, we found that other factors, such as the complexity of E U
legislation, the duration of the transposition and the number and type of transposition
measures can negatively affect the transposition process and lead to delay, as
confirmed by previous studies. Another predictor of the nature of the transposition
process was the importance attached to the draft directive by the government before
the negotiation at the E U level - higher priority indicates salience and can result in a
difficult transposition. Often this is not due to the voting results in the Council, since
consensual E U politics pushes representatives from member states to finally take
(almost) all of them on board in the final legislative acts.
As a result, taking the whole process into consideration, the administrative capacity
of the government, determined by its internal rules and procedures, can be a significant
factor for timely transposition (cf. Borzel et al. 2010) as well as for linking the ex-ante
and ex-post stages. Thus, the functioning of the national bureaucratic apparatus across
the E U policy-making process requires further study, which is beyond the scope of this
article. Similar attention should be devoted to the parliamentary administrative
capacities for better connecting the ex-ante and ex-post stages, since political factors
(including the party positions toward the EU) can be marginal in debates over technical
policies, as E U rules so often are. Despite predictions that transposition processes are
politicised in the CEE countries (Falkner and Treib 2008), our results, like those of some
other recent studies (cf. Borohska-Hryniewiecka and Grinc 2022; Zbiral 2017), instead
show that turning the E W M / P D (with the benefit of equal access of parliaments to
information on E U legislative file early on) into an advantage for transposition would
demand more expertise, similar to what has been previously found for national scrutiny
mechanisms.
Still, these conclusions might be only preliminary as they are based on very
limited data. While qualitative analysis has the benefit of thorough study of subjects
and mechanisms working within them, it cannot replace the added value of
18 Hosnedlovä and Pitrovä
quantitative research, which in future could include more and various cases
(in terms of the complexity and novelty of the E U directives adopted not only by
ordinary legislative procedure, but also by special legislative procedure, and
transposed both on time and with a delay), as well as explanatory factors (such as
the impact of crisis management, or the number and type of delegated and
implementing acts linked to directives that are often criticised by national
parliaments in reasoned opinions/PD), and search for correlations or causality
between them. This article might be a stepping stone for such more extensive
research.
Moreover, this proposed research design can be applied to other policy areas or
other countries, especially those (1) which are similarly active in the E W M or PD,
(2) whose parliamentary sectoral committees are more involved in E U affairs
(through various parliamentary scrutiny instruments), and (3) which are more
compliant with E U law than the Czech Republic. Finding a state fulfilling these
criteria is not easy because the parliaments most active in ex-ante scrutiny are from
southern Europe (e.g. Portugal and Italy), which are among the worst compilers
(Börzel 2021, 30). The best example would be Sweden and its Riksdag, which
produced, until recently, a high number of opinions and resolutions within the
E W M / P D . Its sectoral committees are more involved in the scrutiny of E U affairs,
and compliance with E U law is high as well. Also, Romania seems to be an
appropriate candidate with an increased number of PDs/subsidiarity opinions
(European Commission 2010-2020a), the involvement of sectoral committees in
E U affairs (COSAC 2017; Gattermann et al. 2016) and an average-to-higher number
of noncompliance cases (cf. European Commission 2010-2020b). In addition, there
are several countries that could fulfil at least two of three proposed conditions and
can thus be potential candidates for future research - e.g. Denmark (cf. Högenauer
and Neuhold 2015, 347-348; Kiiver 2012, 26; Sprungk 2016, 189), Germany
(cf. Gattermann et al. 2016), Lithuania (Gärtner et al. 2011) or Luxembourg
(cf. European Commission 2010-2020a; COSA C 2017; Börzel 2021, 30; Gattermann
et al. 2016; Grinc 2015).
Considering the changing landscape of E U law, in terms of the decreasing
number of legislative proposals (European Parliament 2017, 25-26), parliamentary
dialogue with the EC (European Commission 2010-2020a), as well as noncompliance
cases (cf. Börzel 2021), it is also necessary to carefully choose a timeframe for
study when parliamentary engagement with E U affairs was higher (i.e. from 2010 to
2018, with the exception of 2015). In this way, we can try to discover the potential
link between the ex-ante and ex-post stages of the E U policy-making process,
including the E W M and PD, and see whether there might (have) be(en) any causal
mechanism that can turn the national parliament into an effective actor in E U
affairs at the European as well as national level.
Supplementary material. To view the supplementary material for this article, please visit https://doi.org/
10.1017/S0143814X23000132
Data availability statement. This study does not employ statistical methods, and no replication materials
are available.
Journal of Public Policy 19
Acknowledgement. The authors are grateful to three anonymous reviewers and the editor for their very
helpful suggestions and patience throughout the revision process. We also thank Robert Zbiral and Jan
Grinc for their valuable comments on earlier versions of the article.
Funding. This work was supported by the Masaryk University under Grant Perspectives of European
Integration in the Context of International Politics III [MUNI/A/1196/2022].
Conflict of interest. The authors declare none.
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Cite this article: Hosnedlova P and Pitrova M . On time or with a delay? Transposition of E U directives in
the Czech Republic in relation to subsidiarity check Journal of Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1017/
S0143814X23000132