Der österreichische Bundesrat und die Subsidiaritätskontrolle – eine Entwicklung hin zur „Europakammer“?

Ever since the founding of the Austrian Bundesrat (Federal Council) of the Austrian Parliament, there have been discussions about its need to be reformed. The debate has mainly focused on the domestic competences of the second chamber of Parliament. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the EU-specific competences of the Austrian Bundesrat and the actual enforcement of these rights. It is examined to which extent the Bundesrat evolved to the “European chamber†of the Austrian Parliament between 2013 and 2016, as claimed by the Bundesrat in its activities reports. The thesis illustrates which policy areas are covered through these activities and investigates how cases where the EU Committee of the Bundesrat objected to legislative proposals based on the principle of subsidiarity are dealt with on a European level. The theoretical framework of this work is the concept of Historical Institutionalism by Kathrin Thelen and co-authors. In order to answer the research question, first the domestic and the EU-specific competences of the Austrian Bundesrat, which are based on the Treaty on European Union and the Austrian federal constitution, are illustrated. The analytical part of the study begins with a comparison of the activities of the EU Committees of the Nationalrat (National Council) with those of the EU Committee of the Bundesrat. Subsequently, the reasoned opinions of the EU Committee of the Bundesrat are reviewed and analysed. In a last step, two expert interviews were conducted to provide a more comprehensive context for the findings of the thesis. The research has shown that in the period of 2013-2016 the Bundesrat indeed evolved to the “European chamber†of the Austrian Parliament. However, this finding is not entirely clear. While three of the five chosen evaluation criteria indicated that the Bundesrat takes on more EU-specific tasks, two criteria pointed towards the Nationalrat. The Austrian Federal Council issued reasoned opinions on European legislative proposals covering six different policy areas. Most of the proposals objected by the EU Committee of the Bundesrat in the given time period have meanwhile entered into force. None of the proposals against which the EU Committee of the Bundesrat issued a reasoned opinion reached the required number of votes from the national parliaments to initiate a subsidiarity check. In only one out of eleven cases did the Austrian representative in the Council of Ministers vote against the European legislative proposal objected by the Bundesrat, but to no avail.