A Democratic Legitimacy Assessment of Recent Governance Mechanisms in Economic and Monetary Union

Governance in the Eurozone has recently been reinforced following two different but complementary strategies. On the one hand, the passing of several legal acts of secondary EU law (known as the Six Pack and the forthcoming Two Pack) has strengthened the existing, but perceived as insufficient, coordination of national economic policies. On the other hand, a piece of international law has been signed by all but two of the Member States (the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union) in order to install in their national legal orders the principles guiding European economic governance. This paper is particularly concerned with the legitimation mechanisms for these new arrangements. In previous research the author established a threefold scheme for studying different examples of governance in relation to democratic legitimacy. In particular, governance can be conceived (1) as fully respecting decisions adopted according to democratic legitimacy and emphasizing its efficient implementation; (2) as complementing democratic legitimacy, for instance by accepting or even integrating technical and expert advice in public decision-making; or (3) as an alternative to democratic legitimacy, as is the case when public decision-making relies on independent non-majoritarian agencies. The aim of this paper is to proceed with a democratic legitimacy assessment of recent developments in Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), in particular of the new governance mechanisms resulting from those two strategies. This task cannot be carried out without dealing with the underlying conceptions EMU is based on, and from which its particular features result. Hence, we will first describe and specify the theoretical models according to which the relationship between governance and democratic legitimacy can be assessed (I). In a second step, we will describe the main features of EMU as designed in Maastricht (II) and will compare that construction with the theoretical models (III). A description will follow of the development of governance in the European Union and, in particular, of the new governance mechanisms recently designed for EMU (IV). Then, we will assess them against the yardstick of our theoretical models (V). Finally, we will conclude by summarizing the main findings of the survey (VI).