Introduction

Cambridge University Press eBooks, pp. 1–17

Abstract

This chapter outlines the purpose and scope of the book. It starts by positioning the role of the European Parliament as an accountability forum in the EU political system. Since most studies on the topic focus on the European Parliament’s legislative and budgetary powers, there is little research on its performance as a political oversight body in different policy fields. The Economic and Monetary Union raises special concerns for democratic accountability due to the rapid expansion of executive powers at the EU level during the euro crisis. In this context, the European Parliament gained some competences to oversee EU executive actors in the framework of new instruments such as the Single Supervisory Mechanism and the European Semester. The introduction describes the new accountability relationships and how they will be studied from an empirical perspective. The analysis is shown to contribute to the academic literature on democratic accountability in the EU and parliamentary oversight more broadly.

Authors 1

1. Adina Akbik corresponding Aachen

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Universiteit Leiden