National Parliaments and EU Fiscal Integration |
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| Authors: | Davor Jan?i? |
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| Institution: | Senior Researcher in EU Law, T.M.C. Asser Institute The Hague, Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam. Previously British Academy Newton Fellow, Department of Law, London School of Economics and Political Science. Research for this article has been partially funded by the British Academy through its postdoctoral Newton International Fellowship scheme. An early draft of this article was presented at the International Conference ‘National Parliaments in the European Integration Process: Finally “Learning to Play the European Game” in the Aftermath of the Lisbon Treaty Reforms and the EU Economic Crisis?’, held at the European Parliament Office in Dublin, Ireland, from 6 to 7 December 2013. A revised version of it was presented at the 1st Annual Conference of PADEMIA (European Commission Erasmus Network on Parliamentary Democracy in Europe) held in Brussels from 12 to 13 June 2014. The author wishes to thank Prof. Damian Chalmers, Dr Floris de Witte, Dr Andrew Lang, the Editor‐in‐Chief, two anonymous reviewers and the conference participants for invaluable and constructive feedback on previous versions of this article. The author is also grateful to Prof. Carlos Closa Montero, Prof. Nicola Lupo, Dr Cristina Fasone and Dr Violeta Ruiz Almendral for a very insightful exchange of views on these topics during the Summer School on Parliamentary Democracy in Europe, which took place at the LUISS University School of Government in Rome in July 2014. The author is also thankful to Fran?ois Sicard and Aude Bornens for providing first‐hand information on the French Parliament. |
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| Abstract: | This article analyses the impact of the euro crisis on national parliaments and examines their response to the deepening of EU fiscal integration and the correspondent limitation of their budgetary autonomy. It argues that the sovereign debt crisis has provoked the emergence of new channels of parliamentary involvement in EU economic governance. National parliaments have acquired various rights of approval in the European Semester, strengthened the accountability of national governments, reinforced their scrutiny over budgeting, improved their access to information, and created domestic and supranational avenues for deliberation and political contestation of European integration. In these respects, they have undergone further Europeanisation. While these reforms do not outweigh the centralisation of EU powers, they represent an embryonic step in the parliamentary adaptation to the nascent EU fiscal regime. Yet they are unlikely substantially to influence EMU policy‐making processes, because of the democratic disconnect inherent in the EU's multilevel constitution. |
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