Accountability Revisited: Parliamentary Perspectives on the Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Stability, Economic Coordination, and Governance

Abstract

<p>This article aims to verify whether, and to what extent, the Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Stability, Economic Coordination and Governance (IPC SECG) has become an accountability enhancing arena through which domestic legislatures can better scrutinize the process of the European Semester. While there is a broad scholarship on the difficult institutionalization of the IPC SECG and controversies related to its operation, little has been said about its actual performance as an accountability enhancing platform, especially in the context of domestic interactions between parliaments and executives in the area of economic governance. Despite it being operational for several years, the scholarship lacks focus on the national parliaments’ perspective with regard to this Conference’s effectiveness. Against this background, drawing from comparative data obtained from questionnaires and interviews, this article addresses the above-mentioned aspects from an actor-oriented approach and delves deeper into parliamentary perceptions of the SECG Conference. Findings indicate that attendance at the SECG Conference by MPs has neither significantly affected their domestic parliamentary activity in the area of economic governance and budgetary policy, nor improved the existing domestic legislative-executive relationship in this context. The Conference’s procedural weaknesses are only one part of the problem, another being the marginalized domestic position of parliaments in the European Semester procedure.</p>

Inter-Parliamentary Union: A model in Parliamentary Leadership

“…IPU has enjoyed significant growth and attainment of over 40% representation of women in some of its member states. However, this representation is limited to less than half of its members (Borońska-Hryniewiecka, 2021). The difficulties to fully prop women into a political leadership position and encourage them to contest as members of parliament has to do with the cultural positions of those nations.…”

National opposition parties within the inter-parliamentary conference on stability, economic coordination and governance in the EU

“…Its very creation was contentious due to the breadth of the mandate it should have, its uncertain composition and its limited deliberative capacity. Moreover, the problematic purpose of this body is also controversial, considering the national parliaments' power of the purse and the fact that budgetary competences are only coordinated at the EU level (Cooper, 2016;Fromage, 2016;Borońska-Hryniewiecka, 2021).…”