The first European affairs committee to be established in a national parliament was the �Committee on the Common Market and the Free Trade Area� in the German Bundesrat, created in 1957. Its purpose was to ensure that the L�nder governments had a greater say in the federal government�s conduct of EU policy.� The Belgian Chamber of Deputies and the Italian Senate followed this example and created their own European affairs committees in 1962 and 1968 respectively. But otherwise no other national parliaments were involved in the business of European affairs in these early days of the European Communities.
However, after the five rounds of enlargement of what is now the European Union - enlargements which added 19 new Member States between 1973 and 2004 - and after several reforms of the EU�s constitutional framework aimed at addressing its democratic deficit, this picture has changed significantly. The national parliaments of the first wave of countries to join the then EC�the UK, Denmark and Ireland�all established European affairs committees (more or less) from the date of accession. The first direct elections to the European Parliament in 1979 encouraged the French Parliament to establish a special delegation in each of its two chambers. In 1986 the signing of the European Single Act and the introduction of the plan to establish a single market in the EC gave national parliaments in a number of Member States the impetus to strengthen their role vis-a-vis their governments: committees were established in the Netherlands�s House of Representatives, and in the parliaments of the two new Member States - Spain and Portugal.
Last but not least, the most recent accession of ten new Member States has further increased the number of national parliaments with European affairs committees. Many of the newcomers had already established special �European integration committees� before acceding to the EU with the purpose of monitoring the negotiation process and preparing for membership. This was the case for instance in Poland, Hungary and Lithuania (they established committees in 1991, 1992 and 1997 respectively).
Altogether there are today 34 �European Affairs Committees� in the national parliaments of the 25 Member States. Twelve Member States have bi-cameral systems, which in most cases implies that there is a European affairs committee in each chamber, although the national parliaments of Belgium, Ireland and Spain, have created joint committees bringing together members from both chambers.
