Democracy, Legitimacy, and Accountability in Euro Crisis Management

This chapter looks at democracy, legitimacy, and accountability in Euro crisis management. It looks at the main critiques of the EU’s response to the crisis. It will be shown that scholars in this area castigate the EMU governance framework for its shortcomings in terms of input, output, and social legitimacy. The chapter makes the case for increased democratic controls and intense inter-institutional dialogue in the functioning of the EMU. It demonstrates how the crisis-induced developments have impacted on the horizontal and vertical distribution of power in the EU and the Member States. First, more powers were conferred on the Commission, Council, and Eurogroup in the measures enacted to combat the crisis. Though the European Parliament was heavily involved in norm production and had a pretty good strike rate in getting its amendments included in the final legislation, its role in policy implementation remains minimal. Second, the EU legislature put much of its reforming faith in a new recruit to strengthen democratic control in the EMU—the national parliaments. The crisis-induced legal and economic developments have circumscribed their budgetary sovereignty in many ways, but the newly enacted rules also serve to empower them vis-à-vis the executive. Third, the de facto division between borrower and lender states might have a bearing on the intra-institutional balance of power in the EU, and the emerging patterns of geographical fragmentation threaten the unity of the EU-28. The chapter set outs concrete proposals on how to enhance transparency and accountability in the EMU.