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International audience; National parliaments have long been neglected in the European integration process, although the Lisbon Treaty significantly improved their status. Nonetheless, this article argues that there is still some margin for improvement. This article explains why this situation must be urgently remedied and proposes some pragmatic solutions to this end. It is argued that national parliaments should receive more information directly, that mechanisms to guarantee the collective accountability of the Council and the European Council should be introduced, and that certain safeguards are needed to ensure a level playing field among national parliaments in their relationship to EU institutions and bodies. This would help to address the existing imbalance between the way in which today's EU operates, and national parliaments' limited possibility to participate at the EU level.

Following the Great Financial Crisis, the European Central Bank’s functions have been significantly altered. It is now involved in the functioning of a variety of European Union bodies and agencies, new powers in the field of banking supervision have been attributed to it and it has resorted to unconventional monetary policy. Such a concentration of powers arguably gives rise to issues of accountability and institutional balance within the European Union: (i) the resulting institutional framework is particularly complex and difficult to understand; (ii) the numerous functions the European Central Bank assumes makes it increasingly difficult to identify in which arena(s) it should be held to account for which action; and (iii) its role in the different bodies or agencies may vary in theory and in practice, which, in turn, influences the degree to which the European Central Bank should be held to account. This article aims at showing to what extent the European Central Bank’s role has multiplied and diversified with a view to assess how it is held to account in those different instances, and what the consequences are for the European Central Bank’s democratic accountability, primarily towards the European Parliament, as well as towards the Council of the European Union and national parliaments where applicable.

Interparliamentary conferences and other permanent forums for interparliamentary cooperation are blossoming in the European Union. Following more or less lengthy negotiations between national and European parliamentarians, two new conferences and a new joint parliamentary scrutiny group for Europol have been created since 2012. Against this background, this article examines to what extent the Joint parliament scrutiny group is comparable to the previously existing interparliamentary conferences. Beyond that, it asks the question as to whether any better-defined guidelines or procedures could be adopted to rationalise the process of creation of new forums for interparliamentary cooperation. It makes some concrete proposals in that direction.

National parliaments were long absent from the European integration process. Following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the economic and monetary crisis and the beginning of the Juncker presidency, an important intensification in national parliaments’ relationship to European institutions can be observed. This begs the question as to whether national parliaments have now become self-standing actors in European governance. The present analysis shows that relationships as they currently exist do not allow to qualify parliaments as ‘actors’, though they are undoubtedly more engaged in this domain than they were before.

The newly established European Banking Union has introduced a unique accountability framework of the European Central Bank vis-a-vis the European Parliament (EP), but also vis-a-vis national parliaments, in the form of Banking Dialogue. The ECB was thus far held to account for its monetary policy actions by the EP in the framework of the long-existing Monetary Dialogue. However, some shortcomings have become apparent in this procedure, especially with the economic crisis. Beyond this, the recent attribution of new competences to the ECB calls for a reflection as to the accountability mechanisms in place to control its actions. Based on an empirical and normative analysis of both types of dialogues, we contend that the Banking Dialogue could serve as a model to reform the Monetary Dialogue to enhance the legitimacy of the ECB's actions and of the EU as a whole.

The European integration process has long been characterised by the predominance of national executive powers. National parliaments were recognised as European actors after several decades only, in the Maastricht Treaty first and to an even larger extent in the Lisbon Treaty. Parliaments were hence long dependent on national constitutional, legal and administrative arrangements to be able to participate in EU affairs. This paper analyses how national parliaments (and their members) have reacted to the challenge the European integration process has represented for them while it also takes due account of the role other institutions, such as constitutional courts, have played in this field. It is argued that while these arrangements may have been successful in allowing national parliaments to play a greater role in this field, they should remain temporary for they are characterised by uncertainty and instability and make it generally difficult for citizens to follow up on national parliaments' actions and to be fully informed. © 2016 Diane Fromage, published by De Gruyter Open 2016.