Mitsprache oder Mitbestimmung?

Abstract

This article addresses the questions of the foreign policy competencies of the Federal Assembly and how it made use of them in the negotiation of the institutional framework agreement with the EU. After a historical classification and a discussion of the relevant legal basis, the author undertakes a computer-aided content analysis of the parliamentary debates on the agreement in the Official Bulletin of the Federal Assembly. The results are then analyzed with recourse to previous insights. In doing so, he shows that there is an interplay between the expansion of parliamentary powers and diminishing opportunities for shaping them and that the Federal Assembly strives to fulfill its partial responsibility for foreign policy. In his conclusions, the author states that the increasing internationalization challenges the cooperation between the Federal Assembly and the Federal Council and that the rights to information and consultation play a key role in this debate.