Taking budgetary powers away from national parliaments? : on parliamentary prerogatives in the Eurozone crisis

Abstract

This paper analyses if and how the position of national parliaments has changed after the adoption of Euro-crisis measures and their first enforcement and tries to draw some conclusions on whether these changes are just temporary or, rather, are likely to endure in the long term and hence to represent a permanent transformation of national constitutional systems. The paper challenges the mainstream assumption that the powers of national parliaments in budgetary procedures have been annulled. It is argued that once the ratification/application and implementation of the most contested Euro-crisis provisions – Fiscal Compact, European Stability Mechanism Treaty and rescue packages – have taken place, in reaction to the most acute phase of the crisis, the combination of national and EU rules, for example on the European Semester are likely to preserve the budgetary powers of national parliaments compared to the pre-crisis period. Parliamentary passivity does not derive, or at least not primarily, from the Euro-crisis legal measures; rather from the political context that the Euro-crisis has triggered. Thus any analysis of the role of parliaments in the Eurozone crisis has to take into account parliamentary institutions ‘in context’, which are influenced by the peculiar political and economic situation of each country. Far from being a uniform category, national parliaments in the Eurozone crisis show asymmetries and a significant variety of positions and powers, since their role depends primarily on national constitutional arrangements.