This article examines the impact of European integration on the Dutch constitutional order. It argues that within this constitutional order, the roles of the executive and the judiciary have been strengthened at the expense of the role of parliament. Although these shifts are partly the outcome of domestic developments, they have also been caused by the process of European integration. Within the Netherlands, there has hardly been any debate on the role of the EU and EU law in the Dutch constitutional order and no formal changes to the written constitution have been made. This can be explained, on the one hand, by the openness of the Dutch legal order for international law and, on the other hand, by the fact that many constitutional practices have not been codified in the formal constitution.

The EU is transforming the function and power of the Dutch parliament as an institution, and the way in which its principal actors, the governing and opposition parliamentary party groups, interact with each other and the government. This article seeks to address the question: How does parliamentary scrutiny over EU decision-making function in the Netherlands and how has this new role for parliament changed both parliamentary and executive relations in the country and the interaction of parties in parliament? For the purposes of this research, this paper uses the typology of King. The author has conducted a number of in-depth interviews with Dutch MPs. Overall, this article concludes the process of parliamentary scrutiny over EU matters in the Netherlands is no longer exclusively about finding a national consensus towards the outside world, but increasingly mirrors the rough and tumble of normal, domestic politics.

Recently in The Netherlands, as in other countries, many have called for administrative and democratic reform. The perspectives implicated in the arguments for change differ, however. Some argue for a strengthening of mechanisms of control and accountability. Others opt for more – and more direct – citizen participation in governance. In effect, these perspectives often contradict. In this article we will look into J.S. Mill's effort to combine such different perspectives. It is shown that in his considerations on good government a third principle is active: administrative competence or quality. Mill, thus, makes us aware of a deficiency in many contemporary evaluations of administrative and democratic renewal.