Técnica jigsaw

Apart from the International Relations Department, parliamentary groups also provide administrative support to MPs’ parliamentary work with regard to EU affairs. In the Chamber of Deputies, administrative support is not attributed to individual MPs in the form of personal assistants. Instead, each parliamentary group or leaning possesses pools of group collaborators. Staff fluctuation in parliamentary groups is relatively high (Interview 16, 2017). Collaborators do not stay long and use their temporary position as a springboard for other employment opportunities, be it in legal affairs or politics. The constant renewal of staff also means that they cannot acquire a thorough knowledge and specialisation on specific issues. The parliament allocates a certain budget to parliamentary groups according to their size. They decide about the distribution of tasks among the collaborators. Within the biggest parliamentary groups such as the CSV or LSAP, budget is allocated to a collaborator responsible for EU affairs. The small

93

size of opposition parties does not allow them to engage a person specifically focused on these matters. The ADR and the Greens do not have enough personnel resources to assign such functions to their collaborators. EU affairs are mainly handled by the collaborators in charge of EU affairs, but are also redistributed to other group collaborators in case the matters fall into their field of competences. All MPs from the same parliamentary group benefit from the technical competences of collaborators. Each parliamentary group designates an EU speaker among the MPs, who is the main interlocutor of collaborators in charge of EU affairs. Sectoral committee members can also request information at any time, for example during parliamentary group meetings. Group collaborators working on EU dossiers tend to have professional and personal experiences linked to EU affairs. For example, one collaborator was journalist in a national newspaper prior to the position in the parliamentary group. The tasks as journalist already consisted in writing on foreign and European affairs (Interview 16, 2017). Another collaborator studied European studies and did an internship as Blue Book trainee at the General Secretariat of the European Commission (Interview 13, 2017).

Each collaborator is assigned to follow the work of one or several parliamentary committees depending on the topics they deal with. Collaborators dealing with EU affairs examine matters that touch upon the EAC’s competences. They receive the EU bulletins sent by the parliamentary representative in Brussels, as well as the tables containing the EU documents from the parliamentary administration. Collaborators support MPs with research tasks on law proposals and get the necessary information for the elaboration of discourses. MPs from sectoral committees can also ask EU group collaborators for advice, for example on the role or impact of EU issues on their policies. Collaborators can make summaries or analyses of current topical debates on the European level or of European draft legislative acts from the European Commission and the European Parliament. They provide also observations on the political news in other countries. EU group collaborators are also responsible to organise press conferences on European politics. The preparation of such press conferences led by MPs implies to anticipate questions and answers, which makes communication one of their essential tasks. Collaborators in charge of EU affairs do not participate frequently in interparliamentary conferences, leaving this task to MPs and civil servants from the International Relations Department.

The crosscutting nature of EU issues and their generalist profile forces group collaborators in charge of EU politics to coordinate with their colleagues from the same parliamentary group to obtain specialised information on policy fields impacted by the European level. The role of EU group collaborators is thus to draw their colleagues’ attention on EU dossiers that might affect their policy field and be of importance for Luxembourg and the party (Interview 16, 2017). Due to the small number of staff and the fact that EU affairs concern multiple domestic policies, collaborators do not have time to enter into details. They need to make a selection of the topics that they will examine according to their political significance. Whenever they find a topic of interest for the party, collaborators can suggest it to the MP endorsing the role of EU affairs Speaker in the group. The topics can then be discussed in a working group dedicated to EU affairs with other party members, ministers from the same party or experts from ministries. Exchanges are also quite frequent with MEPs’ collaborators. Their office within the parliamentary group ensures proximity to and a constant dialogue with

94

MEPs. Due to the limited administrative resources on the national level, MPs from the biggest parties benefitting from a presence on the European level take advantage of their MEPs’ resources to obtain information.

Access to European information also depends on each collaborator’s personal network, as well as the position of the party in the national political landscape. Collaborators from a parliamentary group belonging to the majority tend to have an easier access to information and privileged contact to ministers from the governmental coalition (Interview 13, 2017). Exchanges with civil servants from ministerial departments tend to be facilitated. Collaborators in the CSV parliamentary group, even though currently in the opposition, benefit additionally from privileged contacts with the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and his administrative and political resources. The President of the European Commission kept his membership in the CSV party in Luxembourg and still participated in meetings within the parliamentary group (Interview 16, 2017). The CSV collaborator in charge of EU affairs even has personal and informal contacts with Juncker and his cabinet in the European Commission. This relationship facilitates early and privileged ex-ante information exchange on EU issues. The collaborator also maintains direct contact with other European Commissioners. Within Parliament, contacts between collaborators from different parliamentary groups are however non-existent. The International Relations Department within the parliamentary administration is the main interlocutor of group collaborators in charge of EU dossiers, whether they need informal or official information. However, meetings between them are infrequent. Only if the EAC Chair, who belongs to the LSAP parliamentary group, decides to organise a work meeting with the committee staff will there be an opportunity for the collaborator belonging to the same parliamentary group as the Chair to participate in the meeting (Interview 13, 2017). Collaborators from other parliamentary groups are not allowed to join.

On top of the administrative support, MPs also benefit from a discussion format within their party that enables exchanges on EU topics. The contact between MPs and MEPs from the same party is more frequent within the parliamentary group than within Parliament. Collaboration serves to establish coordinated and common positions on EU policies. Within each group, MPs and MEPs meet every week to discuss their work and to find consensual positions. Exchanges of views happen in a different format outside of parliament. The objective of these regular meetings is to achieve internal cohesion and seek coordination on dossiers, with the presence of group collaborators. Discussions can focus on the preparation of reports or dossiers in the framework of parliamentary committee meetings, which are then discussed by all MPs from the group. Common meetings enable the gathering of opinions and individual expertise and obtain diversified views on similar topics. Priorities might be different between MPs and MEPs and these common meetings internal to parliamentary groups allow raising awareness, from one or the other side, on issues that were not perceived as relevant at first sight. Coordination is also sought on the European level, where MPs from same political families meet in European party congresses, pre-summit meetings (before European Council summits) or meetings of the Bureau of political groups to elaborate consensual positions and exchange views (Interview 16, 2017). During pre-summit meetings, political groups meet informally to discuss negotiation guidelines and define common positions. Exchanges between political families are not formalised and take mostly the form of networks assembling different

95

horizontal and vertical political levels (local/national/European; parliamentary and party level). Participation in these formats enables an early-stage involvement of MPs in the European decision-making process and a privileged access to information. Smaller parliamentary groups on the national level, such as the ADR or Déi Lénk in the opposition, do not have access to such information to the same extent because of their absence from the European political sphere. However, MPs from these parliamentary groups still participate in common meetings on the European level with their counterparts from other countries.

Each parliamentary group decides if it wishes to establish working groups. EU working groups are arenas of dialogue that are not proper to parliamentary groups. For example, the LSAP working group “European questions” (“Questions Européennes”) aims to inform on and raise awareness about EU affairs among citizens and politicians and increase the European dimension of the party (Interview 13, 2017). Working groups are party structures, even though the group collaborator in charge of EU affairs in parliament manages them. As party structures, they are not only open to MPs, but also to all party members. This means that ministers, as well as MEPs, are invited to participate in these meetings. In the LSAP EU working group, the co- responsible is an MEP (Interview 13, 2017). The frequency of EU working group meetings depends on the topics on the political agenda, but base on different priorities put on the EAC’s agenda (Interview 13, 2017). The working group discusses political position papers and focuses on current issues, while the EAC discusses legislative matters based on official EU documents. Thus, topics of EU working group meetings can be wider than those of the EAC and more oriented towards the European level. After working group meetings, protocols are established, which become the party’s official position on the examined matter.