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Free keywords:
parliamentary parties, political parties, European Semester, national parliaments, EU Member States, Germany, Austria, Ireland, France, formal powers
Abstract:
This chapter examines the factors that account for political parties’ willingness, or lack thereof, to comply with the European Semester. Using Germany, Austria, Ireland, and France as case studies, it investigates how parliamentary parties of these four Member States accommodate conflicting pressures from the European Commission and national constituencies and industries within the 2014 and 2015 cycles of the European Semester. It shows that the concept of ownership of the European Semester by national political parties is not particularly helpful in identifying the mechanisms that determine their willingness to comply with the European Semester. Compliance does not depend on their intrinsic commitment to EU economic coordination, but rather on a variety of external, formal, and institutional factors that limit their decisions. Namely, strong formal powers in European and budgetary matters constitute an incentive for non-compliance. This means that national parliamentary parties are less likely to comply with the European Semester when they enjoy strong formal powers. Compliance within the European Semester also becomes problematic when there is no coherence between country-specific recommendations and the economic preferences of a political party. Conflict over such compliance has therefore been structured along the ideological dimension (left–right conflict rather than that of political power (government–opposition conflict).
