Dr. Mendeltje van Keulen (advisor to the Parliament) addressed the European seminar on the theme: The New EU role of National Parliaments: from 'losers' to 'latecomers' in EU policy making. She described how there has been a trend for national parliaments to have greater influence in decisions relating European Integration. But, before Lisbon, national parliaments had only an indirect influence on European topics. In the 1990s national parliaments have experienced a common Europeanization. EU competences for national parliaments have come both directly (through direct response/red card/treaty revisions/accession requests/evaluation and monitoring of the AFSJ) and indirectly (through scrutiny of national governments position in the Council).

Parliaments’ influence emanates from different sources:
- the subsidiarity check  (which has also increased national parliaments cooperation among themselves)
- scrutiny reserve (gave the Dutch example)
- increased inter-parliamentary co-operation by parliamentary representatives in Brussels and COSAC
- party-political contacts.

The European Parliament has become very active (even in fields where they don't have competences, the European Parliament still issues opinions/resolutions); it is very difficult to establish real contact between. However, it remains difficult to forge cooperation between national and European parliamentarians. Each had their own agenda. One solution would be the videochat, with which the Dutch have successfully experimented. The issue is made more difficult by deciding where EU work should be conducted in national parliaments – whether through a European Affairs Committees (as practiced in Denmark) or through the relevant sectoral committees (as the Netherlands advocates). The reluctance of EU-spokespersons to relinquish issues to (better qualified) colleagues variation in information and scrutiny systems, itself partly a reflection of national constitutional arrangements and practices, undermines cooperation between parliaments.  

During the time for questions, it was suggested that the scrutiny period was too short and that national parliaments were in a difficult position when confronted by an increasingly bureaucratized European union.