Methodological note

• Author: Anglmayer, Irmgard
• Pages: 8-9

EPRS | European Parli amentary Re searchService

VIII

Methodological note

This study dra ws on a sur vey EPRS conducted among Eur opea n national parliaments. Th e su rvey

aimed at mappingparliaments' capacities and pract ices in the field of ex-ante impact assessment

and ex-post evaluation. Itwas laun ched in July 2019, via the European Centr e for Parliamen tary

Research and Documentation (ECPRD), which is thenetwork o f parliamentary research services

of all EU an d Council of Eur ope member s tates.

The questionnairewas designed toyield detailed, yet comparable data. Respondents were asked to

select applicablepre-defined answers, and to complement them with free-text comments.

Bicameral parliaments– 12exist in t he EU-27alone – were r equested to provide a sepa rate an swer

for e ach cha mber. 1

By t he end o f Augu st 2019, 22 out of the then 28 EU national parliaments had replied to the survey.

Such a high response rate suggested a genuine interest in the topic onthe side of national

parliaments, prompting EPRS to further endeavour to com plete the pictur e across the EU. By

Novem ber 2019, par liaments of all EU Member States had returned the ques tionnaire, although two

bicameral parliamen ts replied for on e chamberonly.2Addit ional responseswere received from the

national parliaments of the following Councilof Europe countries: Albania, Canada,3Ic elan d,

Montenegro, Moldova, North Macedonia, Norway, SanMarino, Switzerland and Turkey.

Substantial furthe r desk research was undertakento complement and triangulatethe information

obtained through the survey. This appliesin particularto chapt ers 2 and 3of this study, which

describe the level, processesandpart icularities of in dividual parliaments' engagement in ex-ante

impact assessment and ex-post evaluation. Overall, thesecountry chapters vary greatly in length

and depth, depending on parliaments' engagement on the one hand, and the availability of pub licly

available primary and secondary information on the other.

Towards t he end of the drafting process, survey respondents from national parliaments were in vited

to comment on their respective coun try sections (cha pters 2 and 3). The fact that nearly all

respond ents made use of this review o pportunity increases the a ccuracy of t his paper . This study

was peer-reviewed inter nally by colleagues fr om EPRS.

In analysingthe r egulato ry policy practices of such a high number of national parliaments in a

comparative manner, this studyexplores somewhatuncha rtered territ ory . However, ithas clear

limita tions.

Firs tly, the study relies heavily on self-reporteddata. Th is co ul d be only to some extent

(and not for all countries) objectivised and tested through desk research, depending on

the wealth ofdata pr ovided o n par liaments 'websites and t he ava ilability of further

infor mation and research sources.

Secon dly, the study is limit ed to d escribing and ana lysing p arliamen tary practice s in

place. Although p arliaments were requested to pr ovide samples of their wor k – a nd

samples r eceived were mostly lookedat, la ngu age per m itt ing – it would go beyond the

scope of thisstudy to systematically assess the methodologyparl iame nts u se fo r their

regulatorypolicy work and the quality of parliaments' impact assessment and

evaluation output.This would require further research work.

1The following EU-27 parliaments have two chambers: Austria, Belgium, Czechia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy,

Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Spain. In addition, from the countries surveyed outside the EU, Canada,

Switz erl and and th e UK have bicame ral par liam entar y syst ems.

2No responses were received from the Dutch and the Romanian Senate.

3Canada holds obser ver stat us with the Council of Europe .