Danko: Time When Brussels Looked Down on National Parliaments Over

Bratislava, December 30 (TASR) – One of the reasons why Slovakia as part of its Presidency of the Council of the European Union organised an informal summit of EU parliamentary chairs in Bratislava in October was the increasing importance of national parliaments for the future of the Union itself, Parliamentary Chairman and Slovak National Party (SNS) leader Andrej Danko has said in an interview for TASR.

“There’s a crisis in terms of the functioning of the Union as well as in terms of relations that resulted in Brexit. Due to the fact that the areas haven’t been identified, there are arguments concerning in which areas we should show more solidarity and in which we shouldn’t, how to deal with migration; and it is exactly that position of ours, the position of national parliaments, that is unique,” said Danko.

According to the Slovak parliamentary chairman, the idea that European institutions will make decisions from above and that these decisions will simply be implemented at the national level was an illusion. “National parliaments are waking up in a way at the moment and they are giving a helping hand to the European Parliament (EP), which used to look down on them in an arrogant and ignorant manner in the past,” he said.

“National parliaments are exposed to elections more often, so politicians in national parliaments have to experience people’s dissatisfaction in everyday life to much greater extent; and this applies, for example, to the migration issue as well,” he added, noting that MEPs have much less contact with what is taking place in their own countries.

Danko further stated that the chairs of national parliaments at the summit in Bratislava in October set themselves the task of deepening communication with the EP more intensively and of making the EU’s policies more understandable for the public.