Democratic parliamentary control in times of crisis (Deliverable 8.5)

This report provides a comparative analysis which tests the analytical framework that was advanced in the bEUcitizen report ‘Constraints imposed by financial markets on political choice in the EU’ (Deliverable 8.1.), which focused on whether and how the meaningful exercise of European political citizenship has been constrained by financial market developments in the context of the euro crisis. The focus is on Austria, Finland, Ireland and Slovakia, which represent four smaller EU member states witnessing strong politicization around the issue of euro area crisis decision-making, notably the provision of financial assistance. The individual case studies demonstrate how each constituency responded to the challenge financial markets posed to decision-makers and how this and the multi-level and decentralized EU economic governance structure impacted on the meaningful exercise of core political rights. The report concludes that the euro crisis posed no threat to the formal validity of core citizenship rights. However, it is shown in relation to each country setting that the limitation of viable political alternatives in electoral competition, the influential role of executive actors and bureaucratic transnational European elites as well as secrecy practices and in some cases the lack of appropriate accountability structures restrict the meaningful exercise of European political citizenship.