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Aleksandra Maatsch, Ian Cooper, Governance Without Democracy? Analysing the Role of Parliaments in European Economic Governance after the Crisis: Introduction to the Special Issue, Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 70, Issue 4, October 2017, Pages 645–654, https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsx018
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1. Introduction
The recent European financial crisis has been an earthquake-like experience not only economically, but also for its impact on the democratic institutions of the European Union (EU) and its Member States. Many scholars have observed that representative democracy in EU Member States has been eroded during that period (Mair, 2011; Rose, 2014; Rittberger and Winzen, 2015; Maatsch, 2016). In particular, the financial crisis constituted a period when political deliberation often gave way to technocratic decision-making. Indeed, the most basic powers of national parliaments—their power to control the domestic budgetary process and to represent their constituents’ interests during that process—have been undermined (Mair, 2011; Rose, 2014).
The reform of European economic governance took place under extreme time pressure, which opened a door to practices that allowed governments to constrain national parliaments’ scrutiny and legislative powers. The ability to raise taxes and set independent budgets is a key aspect of national sovereignty and national parliaments have traditionally enjoyed significant powers in this regard. The establishment of Economic and Monetary Union imposed some constraints on states’ ability to manage their own economic and budgetary affairs in theory, but in practice such constraints were typically seen only in the breach. By contrast, the EU’s responses to the global economic crisis and then in particular to the Eurozone crisis have led to far more serious limitations on the powers of national parliaments, raising profound questions about democracy, legitimacy and accountability. In its attempts to resolve the Eurozone crisis, the EU has enacted a series of measures designed to tighten fiscal governance and national budgeting rules across EU Member States in order to stabilise the Euro and allay a seemingly existential threat to the Union.
