Parliaments in the Euro Crisis: Can the Losers of Integration Still Fight Back?

Abstract:

The eurozone crisis challenges the scrutiny systems of national parliaments: many instruments tackling the crisis were established outside the EU legal framework; the crisis management has generally been dominated by European and national executives; and decisions were taken under enormous time pressure. Did national parliaments become involved in scrutiny of the crisis management, and if so, how? And to what extent are their crisis-related scrutiny activities different from those in other EU affairs? Based on a quantitative data set on formal parliamentary activities in 2010–12, this article shows that the crisis did play an important role with regard to plenary EU debates in many national parliaments. Beyond debates, however, scrutiny of the crisis management has surprisingly been ‘business as usual’ for most parliamentary chambers. This further cements the gap between formally strong and active and formally weak and inactive parliaments.