III.
ASSESSMENT AND FUTURE OF THE INTERPARLIAMENTARY CONFERENCE ON ECONOMIC
STABILITY, COORDINATION AND GOVERNANCE A DECADE AFTER ITS CREATION
Ms Diane
Fromage, researcher, Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow, Siences Po
1. Introduction: The Conference, its origins and characteristics
In the wake of the economic and financial crisis that swept Europe and the world in the late 2000s, several measures were adopted at the European Union level (and by its Member States), primarily to guarantee the sustainability of the single currency. These included the reform of the 1997 Stability and Growth Pact through two legislative packages ('Six Pack' and 'Two Pack'468(*)), as well as intergovernmental treaties including the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance (TSCG) approved in 2012, a decade ago.
The effect of these reforms has been to restrict the prerogatives of national parliaments in budgetary matters, in the sense that they are now more constrained in their budgetary choices, which are made in dialogue with the European authorities, in particular the European Commission, as part of the so-called European Semester procedure469(*). At the same time, the possibilities for control and influence attributed to the European Parliament have changed only marginally, insofar as they have remained largely confined to opportunities for dialogue without going as far as the possibility of co-decision, as is now the rule in most European action470(*). However, the TSCG provides that "the European Parliament and the national parliaments of the contracting parties shall together define the organisation and promotion of a conference bringing together representatives of the relevant committees of the European Parliament and representatives of the relevant committees of the national parliaments to discuss budgetary policies and other matters governed by this Treaty" (art. 13). Although contained in an intergovernmental treaty concluded outside the legal framework of the Union, this article refers to Title II of Protocol No. 1 on the role of national parliaments annexed to the Union Treaties, which deals with interparliamentary cooperation.
Title II consists of two articles, Articles 9 and 10, which contain, on the one hand, a general reference to cooperation between the European Parliament and national parliaments (Article 9) and, on the other hand, an implicit reference to the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for European Union Affairs of the Parliaments of the European Union (COSAC, Article 10)471(*). The conference provided for in Article 13 TSCG could therefore have been established in two forms: either in the form of a new interparliamentary conference, as was finally decided, or in the form of a thematic sub-conference of COSAC. The first option was favoured, among other reasons because it avoided the need for an identical number of MEPs and national MPs to attend, as is the case with COSAC, where six MEPs and six MPs from each national parliament meet every six months472(*). In addition to the question of the number of MEPs (and, more generally, the size of the various delegations, on which no agreement could finally be reached), there was also, among other issues, the question of whether or not non-signatory states could be full members of the Conference. Not all EU Member States wanted to be bound by all or part of the TSCG: the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom were totally opposed, while Croatia was not yet a member of the European Union. Nevertheless, it was decided that the parliaments of all EU Member States would participate in the Interparliamentary Conference, which is ultimately similar to other interparliamentary conferences, both those that already existed when it was set up and those that have since been created473(*).
Without wishing to recount here once again the difficulties surrounding the negotiations that preceded the establishment of the Interparliamentary Conference on Economic Stability, Coordination and Governance - which will be referred to here as the "Article 13 Conference" as it is commonly known in practice - it should be recalled that these negotiations were particularly long and tedious474(*). They began in 2013 and were not completed until 2015, when different visions were put forward, particularly with regard to the purpose of the Conference and its scope, or the size of the delegations, a subject on which no agreement could be reached, as mentioned above.
According to its Rules of Procedure475(*), the Conference "shall be a frame of reference for the debate and exchange of information and best practice on the implementation of the provisions of the Treaty, with a view to strengthening cooperation between national parliaments and the European Parliament and contributing to ensuring democratic accountability in the field of economic governance and budgetary policies of the EU, in particular EMU, taking into account the social dimension and without prejudice to the competences of the EU parliaments" (Art. 2.1476(*)). The Conference meets twice a year, it being understood that the first annual meeting is held in Brussels and is co-organised by the parliament of the State holding the rotating Presidency of the Council and the European Parliament, while the second annual meeting is the sole responsibility of the parliament holding the Presidency and takes place within that Member State (art. 3.1). Moreover, the same division of responsibilities applies to the definition of agendas (art. 3.4). The Conference also operates on the basis of consensus (art. 3.7). In this sense, it is similar to the other existing interparliamentary conferences, with the exception of COSAC, which alone can adopt contributions by qualified majority (art. 7.5 COSAC Rules of Procedure). Lastly, non-binding Presidency conclusions may be presented (possibly in conjunction with the European Parliament at the first annual meeting; art. 6.1).
Given that the process of setting up the Conference was a lengthy one, and above all given that a number of reforms have since taken place in the field of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), resulting in a further transfer of powers to the European bodies, and at a time when France holds the rotating Presidency of the Council, it seems all the more necessary to take stock of ten years of interparliamentary cooperation in economic matters (2) in order to outline some desirable avenues for future development (3).
2. Eight years of interparliamentary cooperation in economic matters
The main purpose of this report is to show that some of the tensions that existed when the Conference was set up have now subsided, if not been resolved (A). It also highlights the fact that, although the Conference has met as planned, there have been significant developments (B). Finally, it is also worth noting how other initiatives have gradually made up for the shortcomings of the Article 13 Conference (C). Each of these aspects is examined in turn in the following paragraphs.
a) Conference that has not suffered from the tensions that marred its creation
First of all, it should be noted that the question of the number of participants per national delegation did not, in the end, cause any problems in practice insofar as even when meetings are held online, as was the case in 2020 and 2021, there are no more delegations than there are at other interparliamentary conferences which, for example, limit the number of participating members to six (COSAC). On the contrary, an analysis of the lists of participants available on the IPEX platform reveals that the delegations are rather few in number, or even composed solely of administrators and not parliamentarians, even though the Conference is supposed to enable exchanges between political players. In fact, it would appear that there has been a downward trend in the number of registered parliamentarians in recent years (for some chambers at least), despite the fact that attending meetings is now particularly easy and inexpensive. However, this phenomenon is not only visible in the context of this Conference, but is more widespread, since it is also common in the context of other conferences for parliaments not to make use of all the quotas of participants to which they would be entitled.
An individual qualitative study specific to each chamber or to each parliamentarian would be necessary to determine whether, in the context of the Article 13 Conference as in that of other conferences, this is the expression of a general decline in interest, a lack of interest in the subjects dealt with at a particular meeting, or the expression of general fatigue in the face of virtual meetings, which have become particularly numerous since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Whatever the case, there is no doubt that even though some of the delegations were quite large, with more than six members per State, this is not a general trend that applies to all.
It can also be seen that the distinction between signatory and non-signatory states of the TSCG was not made in practice either, since the Czech delegations are, for example, generally rather large. On the other hand, the Croatian delegations may have been smaller, and perhaps the geographical factor played a role in the fluctuations that existed over time, since the Croatian MEPs were more numerous than they had been on other occasions when the Conference met in Ljubljana.
Moreover, while the question of defining the Conference's area of competence had been discussed at the time of its creation, there is nothing in the accessible debates to suggest that this question has continued to pose any difficulty. On the contrary, other subjects not directly linked to the problems of the TSCG, such as economic reconstruction after the pandemic, have been the subject of debate, the latter having been addressed at the meeting held during the Slovenian Presidency in September 2021. It is in this sense that, as we will discuss in the next section, it is regrettable that certain issues, although very important, have never been included on the agenda of the Conference meetings, or have been included only too infrequently.
Finally, the coordination between the Conference and the European Parliamentary Week initiative, organised annually by the European Parliament since 2012, now seems to be working well, especially as both the Conference and the Parliamentary Week have been considerably shortened. The European Parliament launched the European Parliamentary Week (European Parliamentary Week477(*)) to facilitate interparliamentary cooperation on the European Semester after the Six Pack and the TSCG had been approved. During the first few years of operation of these initiatives, certain choices regarding the inclusion of certain topics within the framework of the Parliamentary Week (or more precisely the Conference on the European Semester, which makes up the Week with the Article 13 Conference) when they should logically have been debated within the framework of the Article 13 Conference, may have raised questions in the minds of the outside observer, even if they were probably due to political preferences. The clear distinction between the part of the programme dedicated to the Conference on the European Semester and that dedicated to the Article 13 Conference, which has since been largely erased, nevertheless suggests that these difficulties - and even a degree of competition between these initiatives - have not lasted over time.
b) A decade of interparliamentary cooperation marked by major developments
This is so because the Conference, and interparliamentary cooperation in economic matters more generally, have undergone major changes since they began ten years ago.
The most significant change has undoubtedly been the changes that have affected the first of the Conference's two annual meetings, organised around the months of February and March. Indeed, even before the Covid-19 crisis, the "Parliamentary Week" had been reduced to one or even two days. The second annual conference organised by the Presidency's parliament has largely been kept to two days (as is also customary for other interparliamentary meetings), with the exception of the one organised in autumn 2021 when the pandemic was in full swing.
The format adopted may have varied, since until 2022 it had been customary for the Conference on the European Semester to take the form of interparliamentary committee meetings (ICMs), which are particularly appreciated by national and European parliamentarians as they enable a more concentrated exchange between a smaller number of experts478(*). In 2022, on the other hand, the choice has been made in favour of a High Level Conference on the European Recovery Plan. It remains to be seen whether this change will become permanent or whether, on the contrary, and as would undoubtedly be desirable in order to allow a better, more targeted exchange between parliamentarians, the choice will again be made in favour of ICMs in the future.
Furthermore, as mentioned above, the size of the delegations has fluctuated, and has tended to become smaller as time has gone by. Here again, we will have to continue to observe how this trend evolves as the Member States (and the Union) are called upon to implement, and above all to find a way of financing, the European recovery plan. Indeed, national and European parliaments undoubtedly have a need, and above all a duty, to closely exchange the information in their possession. The Next Generation EU recovery plan is unique (and risky) in many respects479(*). It relies on European funds raised on the markets thanks to the guarantee provided by the Member States, which would stand in for the Union if it were unable to repay its debts. Then, insofar as its implementation was part of the pre-existing European Semester, which aimed to improve coordination between national economic and fiscal policies, this Plan once again affects the prerogatives of national parliaments in economic matters. Quite apart from these reasons, the national parliaments and the European Parliament have a duty to do everything in their power to ensure that this Plan does not fail, otherwise there is a risk that public confidence in the integration process will once again be eroded. This is why strong and committed participation within the Article 13 Conference (and the Parliamentary Week) - which must be an opportunity for effective and regular exchanges on the Plan - is essential and must be encouraged and further improved as recalled in conclusion.
As for the issues addressed at the Conference, they were marked by a certain continuity, and evolved according to the progress of the debates taking place at European level, as is normal and logical. For example, the issue of reforming the Stability Pact and integrating EMU has been regularly addressed, as has the fight against tax evasion. Other subjects, such as the challenges of digitalisation and the twentieth anniversary of the euro, were discussed on a more ad hoc basis in response either to the political priorities of the Presidency's parliament or to current events. On the other hand, it is regrettable that certain subjects, such as the Banking Union or financial regulation, have not been sufficiently analysed: the subject of the Banking Union has not been analysed since 2014, even though there have been a number of developments in this area at European level, both in terms of changes to the legal framework and the difficulties encountered by banks that have requested its activation.
c) Initiatives to supplement and compensate for the shortcomings of the Article 13 Conference
An analysis of the Article 13 Conference and its evolution would not be complete if it did not take into account other developments that have supplemented it or even made up for its shortcomings.
This is true first and foremost of the European Semester Conference, even though it would undoubtedly be desirable to simplify and recast these two initiatives (the European Semester Conference and the Article 13 Conference meeting at the beginning of the year) as a single event.
This is also true of the interparliamentary meeting organised regularly at administrative level by the European Parliament's Economic Governance Support Unit (EGOV)480(*). These meetings enable the exchange of information and best practice at a technical level, for example on how parliamentary monitoring of the European Semester is organised. In addition to these meetings on the European Semester, technical briefings are also organised in the margins of the Parliamentary Week to enable exchanges between administrators from the national and European parliaments, as well as with administrators from the European Commission.
These two initiatives to promote coordination at the administrative level are undoubtedly to be welcomed. As pointed out in the introduction, the numerous reforms introduced at European level over the last decade have greatly affected the role of national parliaments in economic and budgetary matters: reference is often made to the fact that they have been deprived of their competences in these areas in favour of their governments, which they cannot always control adequately. Indeed, even when parliaments can individually control the position of "their" representative in the Council or the European Council, the fact remains that a mechanism for collective control of these bodies is still lacking481(*). What is more, particularly during the eurozone crisis and to a lesser extent during the Covid-19 crisis, the informal Eurogroup played a key role. This preference for this informal body has nevertheless had disastrous consequences for the national parliaments, whose ability to control what goes on there is more limited, both at national level, as they often lack specific control instruments, and at European level, insofar as the obligations of transparency and publicity relating to Eurogroup meetings are less than those which normally apply in the context of Council meetings482(*). Finally, as the procedures put in place within the framework of the European Semester, and a fortiori those required for the implementation of the European Recovery Plan, are characterised by a high degree of complexity, any initiative that would enable parliaments to be better informed and better able to exercise the role of control that falls to them can only have positive effects. This is all the more true when such an initiative makes it possible to establish a dialogue between the national and European levels, whose roles in these procedures differ but are nonetheless resolutely complementary for the reasons already set out.
3. Conclusion: Reflections on the future of the Conference
What conclusions can be drawn from the eight years of existence of the Article 13 Conference?
This Conference, and interparliamentary cooperation on EMU, has functioned with regularity. Certain initiatives, particularly at the technical level, have gradually supplemented the exchanges that have taken place at the political level. However, it is regrettable that the potential of this Conference and of interparliamentary cooperation in this area is not being fully exploited.
For example, as noted above, certain subjects are addressed repeatedly, while others, such as banking union, are largely neglected. It would therefore be desirable for the subjects debated within the Article 13 Conference to be more varied.
Then, if the work of the Conference is to have any hope of having any impact, and if the participants are to be able to express their political preferences, and if involvement in the work that takes place within this framework is therefore to be of any interest to national and European MPs, it is important that the possibility of approving contributions be introduced, as is possible within the framework of COSAC. Indeed, as pointed out in the introduction, at present only the possibility of adopting Presidency conclusions exists, and this has sometimes even been replaced by simple Presidency summaries. What is more, the Conference is supposed to operate on the basis of consensus. A better way of doing this would be to modify the existing decision-making method by allowing the use of qualified majority voting.
In order to guarantee the attractiveness of the Conference, it would be desirable for genuine exchanges to be established with the Commissioners in charge, and for contact with these Commissioners not to be limited to speeches without any real opportunity for dialogue. It would also be advisable to capitalise on the experience now acquired in terms of virtual dialogues to set up, on an informal basis, a regular - and no longer just sporadic - collective dialogue between Commissioners and national and European parliamentarians. If these exchanges are confined to the six-monthly meetings of the Conference, there is a risk that they will remain superficial. In addition, the potential that they could have for making these highly technical procedures more attractive to already very busy national and European parliamentarians is reduced accordingly.
To help improve the attractiveness of interparliamentary exchanges and the willingness to make political commitments, the meetings of political groups that have been organised within the framework of the Conference should also be made absolutely systematic.
The format and content of the Conference programme should also be flexible: one session should always be reserved for topical issues, while the exchanges themselves should be dynamic and not just a series of extremely brief speeches prepared in advance by the parliamentarians. Consideration could also be given to merging the Conference on the European Semester with the Article 13 Conference held at the beginning of the year, in the interests of simplification and greater clarity.
Finally, it is absolutely essential that the subject of the European recovery plan should henceforth be automatically included on all the agendas of the Conference meetings, in addition to being the subject of informal interim meetings.
Only if the members of the Conference take up these issues and introduce further changes in the way they operate and use the Article Conference, as well as in their practice of interparliamentary cooperation in this area, will they be able to compensate for the loss of influence that the adoption at European level of measures to combat the economic and financial crisis and the COVID crisis has caused. The war currently raging in Ukraine and the economic consequences it has already caused only reinforced the urgent need to mobilise in this direction if we want to preserve the European economy, and counter the burgeoning euroscepticism in many EU Member States.
* 468 The Six Pack consists of five regulations and one directive (Regulation No 1173/2011 of 16 November 2011 on the effective implementation of budgetary surveillance in the euro area; Regulation No 1174/2011 of 16 November 2011 laying down implementing measures to correct excessive macroeconomic imbalances in the euro area; Regulation No 1175/2011 of 16 November 2011 amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1466/97 on the strengthening of the surveillance of budgetary positions and the surveillance and coordination of economic policies ; Regulation No 1176/2011 of 16 November 2011 on the prevention and correction of macroeconomic imbalances; Regulation No 1177/2011 of 8 November 2011 amending Regulation (EC) No 1467/97 on speeding up and clarifying the implementation of the excessive deficit procedure; Directive 2011/85/EU of 8 November 2011 on the requirements for Member States' fiscal frameworks). The Two Pack is made up of two regulations which, however, only apply to eurozone Member States (Regulation No 473/2013 of 21 May 2013 laying down common provisions for the monitoring and evaluation of draft budgetary plans and for the correction of excessive deficits in euro area Member States; Regulation No 472/2013 of 21 May 2013 on the strengthening of economic and budgetary surveillance in euro area Member States experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, serious difficulties with regard to their financial stability).
* 469 Inter alia Crum, Ben (2020) 'Democratic legitimacy in the post-crisis EMU', Journal of European Integration, p. 406. However, it has been argued that some national parliaments have, on the contrary, seen their budgetary prerogatives strengthened as they had previously been largely dominated by their executive powers. Fasone, Cristina (2015) 'Taking budgetary powers away from national parliaments? : on parliamentary prerogatives in the Eurozone crisis', EUI Working paper. See on national parliaments in the context of the European Semester: Special issue 'National parliaments, the European Parliament and the democratic legitimation of the European Union economic governance' edited by Diane Fromage and Ton van den Brink (2018), Journal of European Integration; Special issue 'Rising to a Challenge? Ten Years of Parliamentary Accountability of the European Semester" edited by Eric Miklin, Aleksandra Maatsch and Tomasz P. Wo•niakowski (2021), Politics and Governance.
* 470 This state of affairs is often deplored, for example by academics (Maurer, Andreas (2013) 'From EMU to DEMU: The Democratic Legitimacy of the EU and the European Parliament', IAI Working papers). However, the validity of this criticism is questionable insofar as economic and fiscal matters continue to fall within the remit of the Member States. In this sense, it could be considered that a procedure which only provides for a decision by the Council without any power of decision for the European Parliament is justified. See on the role of the European Parliament in the field of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the negotiations of the measures adopted to deal with the 2008 crisis: Fasone, Cristina (2014) 'European Economic Governance and Parliamentary representation. What place for the European Parliament?', European Law Journal, and on practice in particular in the context of the European Semester: Crum, Ben (2020) 'Democratic legitimacy in the post-crisis EMU', Journal of European Integration, p. 406; Fromage, Diane (2018) 'The European Parliament in the post-crisis era: an institution empowered on paper only?', Journal of European Integration.
* 471 See articles: Casanela, Pier Giorgio, Lupo, Nicola and Fasone, Cristina (2013) 'Commentary on the Protocol no 1 annexed to the Treaty of Lisbon' In Blanke, Hermann-Josef and Mangiameli, Stelio (eds), The Treaty on European Union (TEU) A Commentary, Springer.
* 472 See generally on the debates surrounding the creation of the so-called Article 13 conference and the divergent visions that existed at the time: Cooper, Ian (2014), 'Parliamentary oversight of the EU after the crisis: on the creation of the "Article 13" interparliamentary conference', LUISS Working paper; Fromage, Diane (2016) 'European Economic Governance and Parliamentary Involvement: Some Shortcomings of the Article 13 Conference and a Solution', Cahiers européens de Sciences Po; Griglio, Elena and Lupo, Nicola (2018) 'The conference on stability, economic coordination and governance: filling the gaps of parliamentary oversight in the EU, Journal of European Integration; Kreilinger, Valentin (2013) 'The new interparliamentary conference for economic and financial governance', Notre Europe Policy Paper.
* 473 See for a comparison between the various interparliamentary conferences and Europol's Joint Parliamentary Monitoring Group: Fromage, Diane (2018) 'A comparison of existing forums for interparliamentary cooperation in the EU and some lessons for the future', Perspectives on Federalism.
* 474 However, these difficulties do not represent an isolated phenomenon: the Interparliamentary Conference on Common Foreign and Security Policy and Common Security and Defence Policy (CFSP/CSDP) set up in 2012 also experienced them at the time of its establishment. See on this phenomenon: Herranz-Surrallés, Anna (2014) 'The EU's Multilevel Parliamentary (Battle)Field: Inter-parliamentary Cooperation and Conflict in Foreign and Security Policy, West European Politics.
* 475 Like the other documents relating to the Conference and its activities, the rules are available on the IPEX platform (ipex.eu).
* 476 In this sense, this Conference may be better suited to parliamentary scrutiny than other conferences such as COSAC or the CFSP/CSDP Conference, which are intended solely for the exchange of information and best practice. Article 1.2 of the COSAC Rules of Procedure and Article 1.1 of the CFSP/CSDP Conference Rules of Procedure. See generally on the various conferences and the function(s) they could play: Cooper, Ian (2019) 'The Inter-Parliamentary Conferences of the European Union: Discussion Forums or Oversight Bodies?' in Raube, Kolja-Müftüler Bac, Meltem-Wouters, Jan (ed.), Parliamentary Cooperation and Diplomacy in EU External Relations, Edward Elgar, p. 139-157.
* 477 Information on this subject is available on the part of the Parliament's website dedicated to relations with national parliaments:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/relnatparl/en/conferences/european-parliamentary-week.
* 478 European Parliament (2017) Relations between the European Parliament and national parliaments. Mid-term report 2016, p. 18.
* 479 See for more details on this Plan and the legal engineering that its approval and implementation required: de Witte, Bruno (2021), 'The European Union's Covid-19 Recovery Plan: The Legal Engineering Of An Economic Policy Shift', p. 635-381.
* 480 Commission ECON, "Coopération avec les parlements nationaux sur le semestre européen" https://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/econ/econ-policies/economic-governance.
* 481 See Griglio, Elena (2020) 'Divided Accountability of the Council and the European Council: The Challenge of Collective Parliamentary Oversight' in Fromage, Diane and Herranz-Surrallés, Anna Executive-Legislative (Im)balance in the European Union, Hart, p. 51-66.
* 482 See on this point in relation to the covid crisis: Dias Pinheiro, Bruno and Fromage, Diane (2020) 'Parliamentary oversight of the EU economic recovery plan - lessons learned and what way forward?' in EU Law in times of pandemic. The EU's legal response to covid-19. Dolores Utrilla and Anjum Shabbir (Ed.), EU Law Live Press, p. 102-116 and on the accountability of the Eurogroup: Markakis, Menelaos (forthcoming) 'The Political and Legal Accountability of the Eurogroup' in Dawson, Mark and Marikut-Akbik, Adina (ed.) Theorising and Assessing Accountability in Post-Crisis EU Economic Governance, Cambridge University Press.