An Inter-Parliamentary Conference for the EMU

This Policy Paper addresses the new Inter-parliamentary Conference on Economic and Financial Governance that meets for the first time in Vilnius on 16 and 17 October 2013. Valentin Kreilinger, Research Fellow at Notre Europe-Jacques Delors Institute examines this new inter-parliamentary arena that was established on the basis of Article 13 of the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance.

The decision to create such an inter-parliamentary conference in the area of the coordination of fiscal and economic policies is actually an old solution for a new problem (part 1), but the way to an agreement was long and stony (part 2). The analysis of the positions of the different actors is based on documents, working papers, reports and resolutions both from national parliaments and European institutions. At this stage, the decision to create the inter parliamentary conference lacks ambition and leaves many questions unanswered.

The draft of the Rules of Procedure is a start, but inter-parliamentary conferences need a higher profile and parliamentary control should be enhanced at every level in order to ensure that parliaments keep up with the future developments towards a “genuine” EMU. It is now important to make the new conference on Economic and Financial Governance work (part 3).