The democratic and parliamentary control of the European Council and Eurozone summits

This report on the “Democratic Control in the Member States of the European Council and the Euro zone summits”
analyses the democratic control of the European Council in all 27
Member States, identifies seven different models of control and
formulates twelve policy recommendations. It was written by a team of researchers at Notre Europe – Jacques Delors Institute and TEPSA at the request of the Directorate General for Internal Policies,
Policy Department C: Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs of the European Parliament.

Olivier
Rozenberg, Associate Research Professor at Sciences Po Paris
co-directed the report on behalf of Notre Europe – Jacques Delors
Institute together with Wolfgang Wessels, Jean Monnet Professor at the
University of Cologne and Chairperson of TEPSA. Valentin Kreilinger, Research Fellow Politics and Institutions, is a co-author of the report, alongside Claudia Hefftler, Mirte Van Den Berge, Laura Ventura and the co-directors of the project.

The
European Council is increasingly central to the governance of the
European Union. Even if national parliaments have originally focused
their involvement in EU affairs on the ordinary legislative process,
most of the chambers have started to develop specific activities, before
or after European summits. From ex-ante influence to ex-post
accountability, seven different models of control of parliamentary control
have been identified across the 27 Member States. Beyond their
differences rooted in national democratic systems, the authors of the
report formulate twelve policy recommendations.

One of the
proposals is of special interest due to the ongoing
debate on the parliamentary control over the coordination of budgetary
and economic policies in the Eurozone and among the Contracting Parties
of the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic
and Monetary Union. On the basis of Article 13 TSCG, this report
proposes to create an
Inter-Parliamentary Conference for budgetary and economic issues and to
model it according to the Inter-Parliamentary Conference for CFSP and
CSDP.