Accountability challenges in EU economic governance? Parliamentary scrutiny of the European Semester

Abstract

This paper sets out to address to what extent and how national parliaments scrutinize the European Semester process. My central argument is that the European semester constitutes a complex regime of different policy-making modes, which poses severe challenges for effective parliamentary scrutiny of the process. Through paired comparison between two Nordic parliaments and the Spanish parliament, I identify a number of accountability challenges in the scrutiny of the European Semester. Although we should expect that parliaments of euro countries are more motivated for scrutinizing the European Semester as the process has stronger implications for national budgetary policy, the findings show the importance of formal monitoring capabilities. Thus, the ability to counteract the accountability challenges of the European Semester is not equal across parliamentary chambers of the EU leading to a reinforcement of existing differences of parliamentary involvement in EU policy-making.

Keywords:

• European Semester
• national parliaments
• EU accountability

Notes

1. Stability Programmes are submitted by euro area countries, whereas convergence programmes are submitted by non-euro countries.

2. Wallace refers to this as a ’regulatory mode’. I call it the ’joint decision mode’ and incorporate the distributional mode into this logic. The ordinary legislative procedure constitutes the focal point of the joint decision mode and the scrutiny instruments of parliaments are designed accordingly.

3. Minutes of meeting of in the Danish Folketing’s European Affairs Committee, 15 October 2010.

4. Minutes of meetings of the Danish Folketing’s European Affairs Committee, 4 March 2011; 17 June 2011.

5. Minutes of meeting, the Danish Folkering’s European Affairs Committee, 17 June 2011.

6. Minutes of meeting, the Danish Folketing’s European Affairs Committee, 13 March 2013.

7. These meetings are not reported in the table as they are conducted behind closed doors.

8. Proposición no de ley: Sobre la participación del parlamento español para avanzar en la democratización de la gobernanza económica de la únion europea y la eurozona. (número de expediente del Congreso 161/001344).

9. Partido Socialista Obrero Español.

10. Minutes of Meeting, Spanish European Affairs Committee ( Comisión Mixta para la Únion Europea), 26 February 2013.