Future EU Treaty Reform? Economic Governance and Democratic Accountability

Abstract:

Any Treaty amendments relating to economic governance in the European Union should, assuming that they are desirable at all, leave the choice of measures to take in order to comply with economic governance rules up to national parliaments and governments. More broadly, any general move toward Treaty amendments which strengthen the EU institutions’ role in economic governance must be accompanied by a greater role for the European Parliament in this area, as well as a greater degree of control by national parliaments over EU activity as compared to other areas of EU integration. Furthermore, if there are any significant Treaty amendments in this area, all Member States which have not yet joined the euro-zone must be given a choice as to whether or not they still wish to join in future.