Influential in the Crisis or a Crisis of Influence? The European Parliament's Legislative Influence in the Wake of the Economic Crisis

Abstract

During the economic crisis, the EU adopted five regulations and one directive (the so-called legislative Six-Pack) in little more than one year. Retrospectively, criticism was expressed, partly stemming from the European Parliament itself, questioning the legitimacy of the new economic governance framework resulting from these measures, in particular the European Semester. However, the European Parliament was a co-legislator in the adoption of Regulation 1175/2011 which codifies the European Semester and Economic Dialogue. This raises the question how the European Parliament has influenced the adoption of this Regulation and which role the economic crisis played in this. This paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of the economic governance architecture and contextualize the claim expressed in the literature that the crisis has shifted power to intergovernmental EU-institutions. Therefore, the decision-making process on Regulation 1175/2011 is analyzed to fist assess the European Parliament’s legislative influence and subsequently explain it by means of new institutionalist theory.

Keywords: Economic Governance; European Semester; European Parliament; Legislative Influence; Decision-Making