This article offers the first ever comparative analysis of the involvement of V4 parliaments in the sphere of European Union (EU) affairs. Its underlying research objective is to determine what conditions V4’s parliamentary participation in various EU-oriented activities such as domestic scrutiny of the government’s EU policy, the political dialogue with the Commission, the Early Warning System for subsidiarity control, and the green card initiative. Based on the actual scrutiny output, parliamentary minutes, and data from questionnaires, we address the questions: (1) To what extent domestic legislatures act as autonomous as opposed to government-supporting actors in these arenas? (2) Do they mostly act as EU veto players, or try to contribute constructively to the EU policy-making process by bringing alternative policy ideas? (3) What are their motivations for engaging in direct dialogue with EU institutions in addition to domestic scrutiny? and (4) How MPs envisage their own EU-oriented roles? While the article reveals that V4 parliaments mostly act as gatekeepers in the sphere of EU affairs, it also casts a new light on the previous literature findings related to the EU-oriented performance of the Czech and Polish lower chambers. We conclude that, generally, V4 parliaments refrain from fully exploiting their relatively strong formal prerogatives in EU affairs—a fact that can be partly explained by the composition of their ruling majorities.

本文首次对 V4 议会在欧盟 (EU) 事务领域的参与进行了比较分析。其基本研究目标是确定 V4 议会参与各种面向欧盟的活动的条件，例如对政府欧盟政策的国内审查、与委员会的政治对话、辅助控制的预警系统和绿卡倡议。根据实际审查结果、议会会议记录和问卷数据，我们解决了以下问题：(1) 在这些领域，国内立法机构在多大程度上独立于政府支持机构？(2) 他们是否主要充当欧盟否决权的参与者，或尝试通过提出替代政策想法对欧盟决策过程做出建设性贡献？(3) 除了国内审查之外，他们与欧盟机构进行直接对话的动机是什么？(4) 议员们如何设想他们自己面向欧盟的角色？虽然文章揭示了 V4 议会主要充当欧盟事务领域的守门人，但它也为先前与捷克和波兰下议院面向欧盟的表现相关的文献发现提供了新的视角。我们得出的结论是，一般而言，V4 议会不会充分利用其在欧盟事务中相对强大的正式特权——这一事实可以部分由其执政多数派的构成来解释。