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THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND ITS INITIATIVE AND OVERSIGHT CAPACITY. THE POLITICAL AGENDA OF THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL...
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jurisdictions. In the same respect, the Parliament
examines the work of the independent institu-
tions of the Union and also plays a key role in
the selection of the executive boards in many of
them. The clearest problems are focused on the
reduced or zero control over the bodies outside
European constitutionalism, such as the Euro-
group, the intergovernmental bailout funds and
the supervision of Member States’ fiscal policy.
These shortcomings are the result of the
decisions taken during the last term and must
be revised in the present one, after the effort
undertaken in the Lisbon Treaty to confer the
Parliament the central role present in any de-
mocracy.
In this respect, the Five Presidents’ Report
(which is presented in the article
The complex
development of the Economic Union. The five
presidents’ document
, by Mario Joao Rodrigues
in this same book) advocates the institutionali-
sation of the Eurogroup with a permanent pres-
ident who, in my view, should be the commis-
sioner responsible for these matters. That step
should enable a global review of the institution’s
accountability, likening its functioning to the Fis-
cal and Financial Policy Council present in Span-
ish law.
In turn, the ESM should “Europeanise”, in-
cluding it within the community’s institutional
framework and, therefore, making it subject to
the European Parliament’s oversight. In any
case, the Parliament should further its capacity
to supervise the current bailouts, giving greater
political weight to the working group set up for
this purpose last March. In fact, the ESM could
be the cornerstone of a Eurozone Treasury,
which is present in the Five Presidents’ Report,
therefore increasing the need to constitutional-
ise this financial instrument.
Also, the Commission’s proposal to increase
the role of the European Parliament within the
framework of the European Semester does not
meet the standards required to afford sufficient
democratic legitimacy to the monitoring pro-
cess of the national budgets. That is why the
Parliament itself recently adopted a common
position to review its institutional function again
in the entire process of analysis and oversight
presently lying, almost exclusively, with the Eu-
ropean Commission.
Undoubtedly, the necessary incorporation
of the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and
Governance into the community acquis –some-
thing that must be undertaken before 2018, as
the agreement itself states– could give rise to
that review, with a greater constitutional com-
mitment. That window of opportunity could be
the way to shape a constitutional framework
again, where a good a part of the excesses of
the last term of office is put in order, a review
that in some way the Five Presidents’ Report
also suggests.
In short, the last five years have seen a huge
qualitative leap in the sharing of economic poli-
cies, especially within the Eurozone. That step
was taken with certain institutional disorder
that has obstructed the mechanism of coordina-
tion and supervision by the European Parlia-
ment, narrowing the scope for action extended
by the Lisbon Treaty. In any case, it is still possi-
ble to use the Treaty itself to increase the role of
the Parliament, but sooner rather than later it
will be necessary to amend it to give more dem-
ocratic coherence to all this process of acceler-
ated, yet insufficient and partial integration of
the Eurozone.