Paper Titles & Abstracts

The far-reaching measures to respond to the crisis have led to deeper integration for euro area Member States in the field of economic policy-making. It has been argued that some of the measures, taken 'in the name of emergency', are not subject to adequate debate among citizens and proper parliamentary scrutiny. In the context of the long-term vision for EMU, the European Council recognised the need for strengthened democratic legitimacy and accountability to support deeper financial, fiscal and economic integration. It argued that democratic control and accountability should take place at the level at which decisions are taken and implemented. However, it remains an open question as to the most appropriate way to organise such multi-level parliamentary scrutiny and to delineate the respective roles of national legislatures and the European Parliament, in particular in policy fields that have not been formally shifted to the European level. Following the literature on legislative politics, this paper will compare parliamentary scrutiny measured by scope, timing, management and influence of parliamentary scrutiny over programmes of economic assistance. The paper will first compare parliamentary scrutiny at the national level of the Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) in programme countries in the context of the economic environment in which these requests were made. Second, it will compare and contrast this with the parliamentary scrutiny of economic assistance in the contributing Member States. Third, it will evaluate the role of the European Parliament in parliamentary scrutiny. It analyses the advantages and drawbacks of the current set-up of parliamentary scrutiny of financial assistance in terms of input and output legitimacy and draws implications for: the role of the European Parliament in holding to account the troika, cooperation between the European Parliament and national parliaments, and for the development of the EU system of multilevel parliamentary scrutiny.