Methodological note

AuthorAnglmayer, Irmgard
Pages8-9
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-27alonewere 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 .

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