By Päivi Leino-Sandberg
The June 2012 European Council adopted a report setting out ‘four essential building blocks’ for the future Economic and Monetary Union (EMU): an integrated financial framework, an integrated budgetary framework, an integrated economic policy framework and, finally, strengthened democratic legitimacy and accountability (1). In its discussions, the European Council stressed that:
Throughout the process, the general objective remains to ensure democratic legitimacy and accountability at the level at which decisions are taken and implemented. Any new steps towards strengthening economic governance will need to be accompanied by further steps towards stronger legitimacy and accountability. (2)
On Friday 25 September, Open Government in the EU researcher Maarten Hillebrandt, together with dr. Stéphanie Novak (Université Catholique Lille) will present a paper at a workshop on the central role of the European Council in recent EU decision making, held at LUISS Guido Carli (Rome). The paper, which deals with the role of the space to think in the EU’s intergovernmental institutions (the European Council and the Council), is planned to be included in a special issue on the European Council in the Journal of European Integration (editors: prof. Uwe Puetter and prof. Sergio Fabbrini).
