IV. THE FUTURE OF EUROPE: WHY DO WE
NEED A SECOND CHAMBER IN THE EUROPEAN UNION?
Mr
Guillaume Sacriste, Senior Lecturer, University Paris 1
Panthéon-Sorbonne, CESSP
The idea of introducing a second chamber into the European institutions was put forward even before the Treaty of Rome. The draft Treaty establishing the European Political Community, adopted on 10 March 1953, already provided for "a Parliament composed of two Houses: the House of Peoples, made up of deputies elected by direct universal suffrage, and the Senate, made up of senators elected by the national parliaments"483(*). This is how Senator Daniel Hoeffel introduced a 2001 report on the creation of a second chamber within the European Union. At the time, there was nothing marginal or far-fetched about the project. It could be supported by a centrist senator with strong pro-European convictions.
Why create such a second chamber? It has been justified from the argument that "despite the increase in the European Parliament's powers, the European Union continues to suffer from a lack of legitimacy". As Daniel Hoeffel's report shows at length, this idea of creating a second chamber has never left the European debate since the beginning of the construction of Europe, so much so that during the Convention on the Future of the Institutions in 2004, one of the nine working groups dealt with this question when the whole Convention was haunted by the desire of its President, Valéry Giscard D'Estaing, to create a Congress of the Peoples made up of delegates from the national parliaments. As Paul Magnette recalls, "it soon became clear during the initial debates that the vast majority of national parliamentarians felt excluded from the European decision-making process and wanted more control over it. The MEPs, supported by most of the delegates from the States that traditionally support it (Benelux, Germany, Italy) were initially hostile to this prospect, fearing that it would weaken the European Parliament"484(*). This hostility is undoubtedly the main reason for its demise.
At a time when the ill winds of nationalism are blowing in Europe, this idea should more than ever be put back on the agenda in order to strengthen the legitimacy of a Europe mired in a polycrisis, while continuing its integration by stealth485(*), increasingly dividing European societies and leading to the disengagement of ever larger sections of these societies.
I would therefore first like to show how European government has been profoundly transformed by the recent crisis.
Secondly, I would like to show that Europe's current multi-level structure maintains a number of blind spots that prevent any real democratic control of this government, and that a second chamber is the natural solution to Europe's growing legitimacy deficit.
1. The Covid crisis and the strengthening of the governance of the European Semester
For Daniel Hoeffel, faced with the growing powers of the Councils, it was necessary to create a second chamber of national parliamentarians, to avoid fuelling a democratic deficit, which could only increase with the transfer of new competences.
However, Daniel Hoeffel's prophecy has come true to an extent that he himself probably could not have imagined at the time. European governance is nothing like it was 20 years ago. The power of the European government - and of the Council in particular - has grown steadily since then. At the risk of calling its legitimacy into question. Daniel Hoeffel's argument is a thousand times more valid today than it was yesterday.
What is the diagnosis of the current situation? Following the COVID crisis, we have entered a new era of European governance: an era of centralisation of this European government around the European Semester, into which the NextgenerationEU plan is now inserted. And even if this centralisation is taking place by stealth, it is clear that it is having a series of consequences for the definition of public policies at European and national level.
The creation of the European Semester in 2010 has had the effect of further framing the macroeconomic policies of the eurozone Member States and, in fact, beyond the eurozone itself. An ever more detailed set of surveillance instruments has been perfected, accompanied by ever faster and more automatic sanctions. Strict supervision of national budgets, macroeconomic balances and the economic policies of Member States has gradually been put in place.
The country-specific recommendations have been expanded and the definition of the economic policies to be coordinated within the Union has been broadened to include certain social and employment policies, on which the European Semester no longer refrains from making suggestions. At the instigation of President Juncker, a battery of indicators has been incorporated into the European Semester, reflecting the objectives of the Social Rights Framework and making it possible to evaluate the social and employment policies of the Member States486(*).
The important thing to remember here is that since its creation ten years ago, the European Semester has become increasingly sophisticated and has attracted more and more new sectors of public policy. The latest avatar of this dynamic is Ursula Von der Leyen's Green Pact. In December 2019, the new President incorporated the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which have in turn been included as indicators for the European Semester.
In short, since 2010, the European Semester has become, in successive layers, the main steering body for the Union's policies.
Until very recently, the question was raised as to the binding nature of this paraphernalia, which was initially presented in the guise of soft politics487(*). This question was decisive in deciding the related question of whether or not this powerful government of the European Semester really existed. Was it a fantasy or a reality? There seemed to be little compliance with the country-specific recommendations, and although the procedures for excessive deficits were becoming more widespread, they did not lead to any sanctions, nor did the almost equally numerous procedures for excessive macroeconomic imbalances488(*).
The adoption of the Next generation EU plan has completely changed this situation. And particularly its centrepiece: the Recovery and Resilience Facility489(*). Why? Firstly, the European Semester remains the general framework for coordinating the economic and social policies of countries whose currency is the euro. As the Commission pointed out last November, it "provides a well-established framework for coordinating the economic and employment policies of the Member States and will continue to play this role in the recovery phase490(*)". As a result, the Commission intends to reinstate virtually all the instruments of the pre-crisis European Semester, which had seemed ill-suited to the exceptional period that the Union has just experienced. It will therefore propose that the Council once again adopt country-specific recommendations in spring 2022491(*). This was clearly announced in the Communication on the annual review of sustainable growth. But the idea is that, from now on, these Recommendations should be linked to the National Recovery and Resilience Plans, because the Recovery and Resilience Facility, according to the new institutional architecture, is well and truly embedded in the European Semester. This is why the Commission is insisting, for example, that these recommendations "will help and reinforce States' efforts in the framework of their recovery and resilience plans, while highlighting emerging challenges to accelerate twin transitions and strengthen resilience". These recommendations will also include recommendations on Member States' budgetary positions as envisaged by the Stability and Growth Pact. Country Reports will also be published again, taking stock of the implementation of the National Plans for Recovery and Resilience against their targets and milestones. The Country Reports, In-depth Assessments and Proposals for Country-Specific Recommendations will form part of the Spring 2022 package of the European Semester.
But as many authors have pointed out, by linking the Recovery and Resilience Facility and the European Semester in this way, the European executives492(*) have fundamentally changed the nature of the European Semester "from a non-binding structure for coordinating economic policies to a much more forceful vehicle for allocating central economic impetus"493(*). This strengthening of the Semester's compliance is achieved by allowing Member States to identify their relevant targets, milestones, and timetables against which implementation efforts will be assessed and by providing financial incentives in exchange for structural reforms (the reforms listed in the Semester's country-specific recommendations). Taken together, these developments increase the pressure on Member States to implement the country-specific recommendations. As the authors point out, the European Commission and national stakeholders have a powerful new opportunity to combine the stick of the Country-Specific Recommendations with the carrot of significant funding from the Facility494(*). In this way, the Recovery and Resilience Facility "upgrades" the Semester, because it offers financial incentives in exchange for a set of coherent public investments and (potentially painful) reforms, and thus gives Member State governments the means to counter domestic resistance to the Semester's recommendations.
In short, in order to obtain funding for their National Recovery and Resilience Plans, Member States now have to go through the European Semester, and in this context, it is worth pointing out that the Commission has a certain discretion in assessing the milestones and targets that Member States must achieve, and can delay or cancel payments without even needing the formal consent of the Council. These links between the European Semester and the recovery and resilience funds are omnipresent at all stages of the production, validation and implementation of the plans, which are carried out by the same complex of national and European executives, the same ones who set up the European Semester:
The three stages in the adoption of national recovery and resilience plans and the European Semester :
a/Discussions upstream of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans.
In addition to taking into account the country-specific Recommendations, it should be noted that the national recovery and resilience plans were prepared upstream in concert between the national administrations and the European Commission, which guided them in order to comply with the Facility Regulation, which defines no less than 11 criteria for assessing these plans with two reference values: 37 % in favour of green investments and 20 % supporting the digital transition. The national plans themselves must be structured around 6 pillars, including 1/the Green Transition, 2/the Digital Transformation and 3/education.
Within the Commission, it is the new task force, RECOVER, created in August 2020 within the Secretariat General, which has been entrusted with this task with the help of DG REFORM and the Technical Support Instrument (TSI), responsible for advising the Member States on ways of implementing the structural reforms recommended by the European Semester or provided for in the national plans for recovery and resilience. It is the RECOVER task force that prepared the acts approving the national plans; it is the task force within the Commission that monitors the progress made by the Member States in implementing the plans; it is the task force that now analyses the periodic reports on the progress made; and it is the task force responsible for coordinating the plans with the European Semester. Moreover, demonstrating the centrality of the European Semester in this process, a special adviser and coordinator of the European Semester, Johannes Luebking, has taken up a direct position in the RECOVER organisation chart, alongside its director, Céline Gauer.
b/Council implementing decision
These National Recovery and Resilience Plans were then approved by an implementing decision of the ECOFIN Council of finance and economy ministers on a proposal from the Commission. This time, it is the senior national treasury officials within the Economic and Financial Committee who come into play to prepare these Council decisions. By October 2021, 22 national plans had been approved by the ECOFIN Council, with these approval decisions leading to an initial disbursement of 13 % of the funds to which each State was entitled.
So who actually approved these national plans? The usual suspects of the Semester: the ECOFIN Council, the Eurogroup, their preparatory committees, the Economic and Financial Committee and the Eurogroup working group, DG ECFIN, DG REFORM, responsible for supporting structural reforms within the Member States, and now the RECOVER task force within the Commission's SG, which carried out the initial evaluation work. In other words, the executives of the Member States and the administrations of the European Commission, recently reinforced with the creation of DG REFORM in January 2020 and the RECOVER task force created in August 2020.
However, in the context of this upstream negotiation procedure for national recovery and resilience plans, everything seems to indicate that the exchanges between the Member States and the Commission departments and the Council and its committees have not only been transparent. The example of Italy has now been leaked to the press495(*). The National Recovery and Resilience Plan was modified by the government between its validation by the Italian Parliament and its final validation by the Council and the European Commission.
In other words, the national and European executives have in reality largely freed themselves from any national parliamentary control in drawing up these plans, but we will come back to this point later.
c/ Genesis of the implementing decision
Finally, the Regulation establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility provides that downstream of this process of producing national plans, disbursements will be made as and when the milestones and targets they have defined are reached by the States and all or a significant part of the country-specific recommendations are taken into account. Once again, the Commission's RECOVER Task Force, DG ECFIN and the Economic and Financial Affairs Council on behalf of the ECOFIN Council will be responsible for this monitoring, which will determine future disbursements. Article 24(6) specifies that the European Commission may establish that the milestones and targets set in the Council implementing decision have not been achieved satisfactorily, in which case payment of all or part of the financial contribution and, where applicable, the loan will be suspended. In this case, after 18 months, without tangible progress on the relevant milestones and targets, the Commission even has the option of terminating the agreements and proceeding to reimburse the pre-financing by the State at fault.
The Facility's disbursements are also more directly linked to some of the European Semester's own pre-crisis mechanisms, while partly reshaping these sanction mechanisms. Thus, according to Article 10 of the Regulation, the Commission may submit to the Council a proposal to suspend all or part of the commitments or payments, for example where the Council has adopted two successive recommendations in the same procedure concerning excessive imbalances on the grounds that a Member State has presented an insufficient corrective action plan, referring directly to Regulation (EU) 1176/2011 on the Six-Pack.
In short, the national recovery and resilience plans are, at every stage of their production, supervised by the players in the European Semester, both upstream and downstream of the decision to disburse funds from the facility. But the European Semester has been modified and strengthened as a result, since it operates in return with a system of very powerful incentives for the Member States - 'carrots' - identified in this form by most of the authors and the Commission's internal testimonies496(*). Moreover, we can note, once again following the Commission, that these financial incentives from the Facility's funds are all the more powerful and effective because "private investment could also be encouraged by public investment programmes, including financial instruments, subsidies and other instruments". The Facility's funds are all the more incentive as they act as a lever for private investors.
This European government of the Semester, now armed with a carrot and a stick, is therefore giving lasting direction to economic, financial, social and environmental investments by all companies in the Member States. It has therefore become more effective, and has established itself as the most powerful government the Union has ever known.
2. Some of the shortcomings of this post-Covid European Semester government.
From the point of view of convergence and financial stability, we can nevertheless note, as some authors have done497(*), that the pressure exerted by the Semester, thanks to the funds of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, is of course not the same from one country to another, and that this could become very problematic: those who have received the most and/or are the most dependent on these funds are under greater pressure from the Semester than those for whom these funds remain marginal in relation to GDP. In other words, the richest of the beneficiary Member States are less dependent on these funds than the poorest, so that the institutions of the Semester have less influence on the former than on the latter. However, from a financial point of view, we know that the surpluses generated by countries such as Germany and the Netherlands over many years should lead to structural reforms and public and private investment in these countries, and the Semester should, no doubt just as much as in southern countries such as Greece and Spain, or central European countries such as Hungary and Poland, be able to exert economic and/or political pressure in favour of these reforms and equally necessary investments, which it cannot do as it stands498(*).
The authors also stress a second point. For the first time, they say, the facility is introducing investment plans and long-term reforms into the European Semester. The national plans include, as we have noted, milestones and targets for a set of investments and reforms that Member States must undertake before 2026. However, a lot can happen between now and then. As the national plans will be the main instruments for coordinating national economies for the next four or five years, a key question is to what extent and when the national plans could be adapted or amended to future cyclical and structural developments.
In these circumstances, a number of factors should be taken into account, which could render these national plans at least partially obsolete. Firstly, certain investment projects may not produce the expected results. Plans for long-term investments are always likely to change over time, either in terms of their size or their relevance, in which case European resources could be better spent elsewhere.
Secondly, European priorities can change; this is true for both investment and structural reform. New reforms or new investments may emerge, which could prove particularly urgent from a European point of view.
Finally, there will be political changes within the Member States, and new governments may wish to change their priorities, including within the framework defined by the various European recommendations.
What does the Facility Regulation provide for in such cases? According to Article 21 of the Regulation, beneficiary countries may request that their national plans be amended "on account of objective circumstances". In this case, the Commission has the power to consider whether or not the reasons put forward by the Member States are justified, and if it considers them to be unjustified, it can reject the Member State's request outright. There will therefore be a political bargain between the State wishing to amend its plan and the Commission, and this will no doubt raise the previous question of asymmetry, depending on whether "you are powerful or miserable...".
It is easy to see the extent to which the governance of these mechanisms is likely to pose a problem, and the question arises as to who will control the evaluators.
3. Powerless parliamentary scrutiny
But who will control this post-Covid European Semester government? Is it the European Parliament? Or the national parliaments? Daniel Hoeffel had already warned us that the European Parliament, lacking legitimacy, did not have the capacity to do so, because MEPs cannot establish the same link with citizens as national parliamentarians.
a) Scrutiny by the European Parliament
The marginalisation of the European Parliament is most evident in the design and monitoring of national plans, which are the basis for European disbursements.
Firstly, as we have seen, the design of these national plans does not involve the European Parliament, and the validation of these plans takes the form of a Commission proposal adopted by the Council. The Commission then makes successive disbursements by means of a delegated implementing act. Here again, the European Parliament has been completely excluded.
Finally, the regulation makes provision for transparency and information to be provided to the European Parliament. According to articles 25 and 26 of the regulation on the facility, the Commission shall simultaneously communicate to the European Parliament and the Council the recovery and resilience plans officially presented by the Member States and the Council's implementing decisions. Every two months, the competent committee of the European Parliament may ask the European Commission for a progress report on the milestones and targets set out in the plan and/or a more general progress report on the plans. And on this basis...the European Parliament can, if necessary, give its opinion by means of a resolution. Its power over this monitoring is therefore only consultative and a posteriori.
Moreover, on 20 May 2021, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on its right to be informed about the ongoing evaluation of national recovery and resilience plans, in which it reminded the Commission, for example, of its obligation under the FRR, to provide Parliament with all relevant information on progress in implementing the FRR Regulation and to take account of any elements arising from opinions expressed in the context of the dialogue on recovery and resilience, including opinions expressed by the relevant committees and resolutions adopted in plenary.
In short, the European Parliament intervenes downstream of the European Commission's assessments and has no positive means of influencing the most important decisions taken by the Commission and the Council, such as the decision to suspend the Facility's funds. Nor does it have the power to intervene in the traditional tools of the European Semester, such as the definition of country-specific recommendations, the excessive imbalance procedure or the excessive deficit procedure.
Daniel Hoeffel's point about the continuing inability of the European Parliament to control the powers of the executive is therefore more relevant here than ever. In fact, it could well be demonstrated that European parliamentarianism has been institutionalised in a distorted form, which at best only gives it the power to inform a posteriori.
b) Scrutiny by national parliaments
If the European Parliament does not control this European government of the post-covid semester, in this multi-level European architecture, we must undoubtedly turn to the national parliaments. For example, when the regulation on the Facility was adopted, national parliaments exercised upstream control over their government's position in the Council negotiations.
On this point, however, let us again refer to Daniel Hoeffel, who points out a structural problem with the argument that the control of national parliaments is real and is exercised through control over their national governments. In his report, he points out that "in each Member State, the national parliament contributes to reducing the democratic deficit of the Union through the control it exercises over the policy pursued within the Council by its government. But this is not enough, because the control that each national parliament exercises over each government is limited by the fact that governments do not act in isolation within the Council and that their positions influence each other"499(*).
In short, at European level, the control exercised by national parliaments is very marginal since it only concerns the position of their government taken individually. The solution advocated by Daniel Hoeffel is for national parliaments to work in tandem with the executive; in other words, a second chamber made up of national parliaments500(*).
If we now turn to the way in which national recovery and resilience plans have been adopted at national level, it seems to have been as if, in many countries, national parliamentarians had no need to be aware of and actively involved in the definition of these plans. A recent study by Follow the money, a platform of European investigative journalists501(*), revealed that in Germany, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland, Romania and Denmark, the government adopted the recovery and resilience plans without a formal vote in Parliament, but at most informed the relevant committees of the progress made and the priorities set. The Romanian Prime Minister, Forin Cîtu, for example, stated: "The plan does not have to go before Parliament, it is a government project [...] is something we can do, but it does not have to be voted on by Parliament, there is no need for a vote, there is no need for a debate". (May 2021).
In Poland too, the national recovery and resilience plan has never been ratified by parliament. The government's plan was proposed shortly after the ratification of the own resources decision. This coincidence created confusion among the political parties who did not require a formal vote to ratify the national plan.
More specifically, in Italy, the Investigative Reporting Project Italy (IRPI) revealed that national parliamentarians had voted on a plan that differed from the one sent to Brussels502(*). Some € 400 million that was supposed to be earmarked for digitisation was reallocated to the green transition and sustainable mobility. Before sending the plan to Brussels, Prime Minister Mario Draghi had also changed the details of tax reform, public administration reform and judicial reform.
In France, at a joint hearing of the National Assembly's Finance Committee and European affairs Committee, Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Lemaire argued that the structural reforms included in the national recovery and resilience plan had not been imposed on France by the European Commission, since they were part of the French recovery plan France Relance, even claiming that these reforms, like those of unemployment insurance, were part of Emmanuel Macron's presidential programme and had therefore been ratified by the French people, no doubt implying that they did not have to be formally adopted by Parliament503(*).
In short, the national parliaments have so far played only a very marginal role in the creation of these plans, which seem to have been primarily windfalls for the executives, who have been able to see in them, within the limits of the constraints imposed, a windfall redistributed in their name to privileged clienteles and projects.
4. What about the scrutiny by a transnational assembly composed of national parliamentarians504(*)?
All in all, then, what emerges from this dual structure is not a dual democracy at European and national level, but a set of democratic blind spots in which neither the European Parliament nor the national parliaments are able to exercise any real control over a powerful European government. Why is this? Because the European/national binary does not take into account the European and national intertwining of the government of the post-Covid European semester. Only an assembly of national parliamentarians, made up on a pro rata basis of the political groups in the national parliaments, would be a symmetrical structure to the Council of the Union, capable and legitimate of controlling its acts. It is such an assembly that we defined five years ago in For a Treaty on the Democratisation of Europe505(*).
By intervening, by definition, at the heart of the sovereignty of States, the question already arose as to the extent to which the European Semester did not limit or undermine the democracies of the Member States, a question raised a long time ago by authors such as Peter Mair506(*). The European Semester, coupled with the Recovery and Resilience Facility, poses a slightly more crucial problem that will continue to grow as European integration progresses in the most sensitive areas of state sovereignty, whether these be international issues, as Daniel Hoeffel has already pointed out, or issues of macroeconomics, taxation, investment and national structural reforms.
An assembly of delegates from national parliaments, whose legitimacy would be firmly rooted in national democracies but which would intervene at European level, thus blurring the boundaries between the national and the European, in a symmetrical way to the blurring of the Semester's instruments, should, for example, have the legitimacy to validate or invalidate the country-specific Recommendations, the purpose of which is to influence national democracies. But unlike what happened with the creation of the single market through negative integration507(*) and the mutual recognition of standards, the national parliamentarians meeting in this assembly would have no interest in leading a general race towards low standards, driven by the pressure of transnational competition, since by exerting downward pressure on the standards of another member state of this transnational assembly, they would automatically exert downward pressure on the standards of their own member state. To put it another way, the structural situation is partly similar to that within the Council, with the exception of the vetoes that no national delegation has in this assembly. All in all, therefore, it is reasonable to think that within this transnational assembly, the pressure could be reversed in favour of defending higher standards, with each of the national parliamentarians having an interest in defending such standards for the others, since it can be assumed that once freed from the question of competition between States, each loses the decisive reason to favour low standards for their fellow citizens.
First example: let's assume that a country-specific Recommendation is formulated stressing the need for massive public investment in infrastructure or education in Germany, as well as a more generous wage policy (this assumption is not completely fictitious...). This Recommendation should therefore be discussed within this transnational assembly. We can assume that a majority of German parliamentarians from the CDU and the FDP would not support this recommendation, on the grounds of defending the sacrosanct balanced budget.
However, a majority within this transnational assembly might support this recommendation for reasons linked to the rebalancing of Germany's trade surplus, which has benefited from the euro to the detriment of most other countries in the euro zone/Union508(*). One might also think that the Assembly would specifically link the implementation of this Recommendation to Germany obtaining funds from the Recovery or Resilience Facility in incentive proportions, thus wielding the carrot and stick in favour of the general European interest. The assembly would thus put pressure on the German government, a pressure that the European Union has so far been unable to bring to bear on Germany. One might even think that, at the end of the process, Germany could be condemned if it did not change its policy, as part of a procedure for macro-economic imbalance, which the transnational assembly would vote on.
Second example: a reform of retirement pensions, included in the country-specific recommendations for France and a condition for obtaining funds from the recovery and resilience facility, could be discussed within this transnational assembly. One might think that those French parliamentarians who would be in favour of the reform would have an interest in trying to build a vast transnational coalition in order to obtain a majority with arguments that would no doubt be primarily political based on the traditional right/left divide, in this case support for the reform in question tends to come from the right. The arguments put forward would also undoubtedly have national dimensions, emphasising specific French characteristics: for example, it is conceivable that the French MPs in favour of reform would emphasise the constraints imposed by the sustainability of the French debt and the need to reduce public spending in France. But within this transnational assembly, it is reasonable to think that a third dimension would emerge from the debates: a dimension specific to transnational dynamics. In the exchanges that would take place between national parliamentarians, we can bet that transnational European solutions for financing pensions could be invoked in order to achieve certain European convergences. These solutions towards high European standards could be partly compensated for by the least performing States. For example, European solutions could envisage the creation of a European Pension Reserve Fund, capable of financing part of the pensions of Member States according to a distribution key modelled on that of the recovery and recovery facility.
In other words, whereas national logic alone predominates in the framework of each national parliament taken one by one, as is the case today, giving priority to the national interest and therefore to every man for himself, this transnational assembly, This transnational assembly, comprising representatives from each national parliament, would force the national parliamentarians to play a collective game of positive integration with a view to building transnational European majorities, the creation of which would be facilitated by the use of the carrot and stick of obtaining or withholding funds from the recovery and resilience facility. It is also clear that, on the whole, this type of logic prevails within the European Parliament. But only a transnational assembly of national parliamentarians would be capable of legitimately intervening at the very heart of national sovereignty, as the European Semester is currently doing in a symmetrical fashion, without any controls.
* 483 D. Hoeffel , Information report on behalf of the Senate delegation for the European Union on a second European chamber, no. 381, annex to the minutes of the sitting of 13 June 2001, p. 4.
* 484 P. Magnette, "La Convention européenne: argumenter et négocier dans une assemblée constituante multinationale", Revue française de science politique, 2004/1, (54), pp. 5-42. The European parliamentarians' more marked opposition to this idea is also reported in A. Dauvergne, L'Europe en Otage? Histoire secrète de la convention, Editions Saint-Simon, 2004, p. 130: "We now have to reckon with national parliamentarians, for example. Initially, many of them were neophytes, but through hard work and assiduity, they have acquired real competence. They have organised themselves. They want to have an influence, and they have considerable support to do so: Paris and Berlin - not that the two capitals are playing against the MEPs (Germany gives them their unstinting support), but they are in favour of greater involvement of the national parliaments in the life of the Union; finally, Giscard himself, whose stubborn desire to create a Congress of the Peoples is of great concern to the MEPs. They fear that this body will reduce their sphere of influence. They are also afraid that it will only be the first tooth in a dangerous spiral".
* 485 Reference to L. Cram I. Tömmel, and A. Verdun, From "integration by stealth" to "good governance" in EU social policy, Boulder, 2008 and more recently: Y. Mény, "Managing the EU Crisis. Another of integration by stealth?", West european politics, 37, 2014.
* 486 On the development of the European semester, we refer to G. Sacriste and A. Vauchez, "L'Euro-isation de l'Europe. Trajectoire historique d'une politique hors-les-murs et nouvelle question démocratique", Revue de l'OFCE, 164, 2019, pp. 5-46. https://www.ofce.sciences-po.fr/pdf/revue/1-164OFCE.pdf and G. Sacriste, "The democratic challenge of post-crisis Europe", AOC, 1 September 2020. at https://aoc.media/analyse/2020/08/31/le-defi-democratique-de-leurope-dapres-crise/ On the social dimension of the Semester, see in particular: A. Crespy, l'Europe sociale. Acteurs politiques, débats, ULB, 2019, p. 206 et seq.
* 487 See : European Court of Auditors, "The European Semester: country recommendations address important issues but implementation leaves much to be desired", Special Report, 16/2020, See also: https://www.ofce.sciences-po.fr/pdf/revue/1-164OFCE.pdf
* 488https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2020/651368/IPOL_IDA(2020)651368_EN.pdf
* 489 Regulation (EU) 2021/241 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 February 2021 establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility.
* 490 European Commission, "Communication from the commission to the european parliament, the european council, the european central bank, the european economic and social committee, the committee of the regions and the european investment bank", Annual sustainable growth survey, 2022, Brussels, 24 November 2021.
* 491 See also: "the future of the european Semester in context of recovery and Resilience Facility - Council conclusions" and for example: "calls for a swift return to the core elements of the european semester in the 2022 cycle, especially reintating country reports and country specific recommendations".
* 492 The link between the Semester and the Facility can be found in the conclusions of the July 2020 European Council: "The criteria of consistency with the country-specific recommendations, as well as strengthening the growth potential, job creation and economic and social resilience of the Member State shall need the highest score of the assessment. ". And with an evocative title: T. Nguyen and N. Reddeker, , "How to make the marriage work. Wedding the recovery and resilience facility and the European Semester", Hertie School, Policy Paper, 31 January 2022.
* 493 B. Vanhercke and A. Verdun, From the european Semester to the recovery and resilience facility. Some social actors are (not) resurfacing, ETUI Working Paper, 2021/13, p. 34. See also S. Bekker, "The EU's Recovery and resilience facility: a next phase in the EU socioeconomic governance?" Politics and Governance, 9 (3), pp. 175-185.
* 494 Ibidem p. 34
* 495 "Despite its commitment to transparency, Brussels refuses to reveal documents on the European recovery plan", Le Monde, 9 February 2022.
* 496 B. Vanhercke and A. Verdun, From the european Semester to the recovery and resilience facility. Some social actors are (not) resurfacing, ETUI Working Paper, 2021/13, p. 34 et voir aussi T. Wieser, « What Role for the European Semester in the recovery plan ? », In-Depth Analysis, request by the Econ Committee, E-Gov, october 2020 et T. Nguyen et N. Reddeker, , « How to make the mariage work. Wedding the recovery and resilience facility and the european Semester », Hertie School, policy Paper, 31 janvier 2022.
* 497 T. Nguyen et N. Reddeker, « How to make the mariage work. Wedding the recovery and resilience facility and the European Semester », Hertie School, policy Paper, 21 janvier 2022.
* 498 Ibidem.
* 499 D. Hoeffel, Information report ...., op. cit, p.13
* 500 "As governments work together, national parliaments must also work together if they are to establish a genuine democratic dialogue with the Council. It is therefore necessary to put in place the means to establish this dialogue between national parliaments on a regular basis", ibidem, p. 13.
* 501 https://www.ftm.eu/articles/corona-recovery-fund-europe
* 502 https://irpimedia.irpi.eu/greenwashing-pnrr-industria-gas/
* 503 https://irpimedia.irpi.eu/greenwashing-pnrr-industria-gas/
* 504 https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/actualites-accueil-hub/plan-national-pour-la-reprise-et-la-resilience-de-la-france-audition-de-bruno-le-maire-et-olivier-dussopt S. Hennette, T. Piketty, G. Sacriste and A. Vauchez, Pour un traité de démocratisation de l'Europe, Paris, Seuil, 2017.
* 505 S. Hennette, T. Piketty, G. Sacriste and A. Vauchez, Pour un traité de démocratisation de l'Europe, Paris, Seuil, 2017.
* 506 P. Mair, Ruling the void. The hollowing of western democracy, Verso, 2013.
* 507On negative and positive integration: "Negative integration means the abolition of customs duties, quantitative restrictions and other barriers to trade or obstacles to free competition. Positive integration, on the other hand, consists in rebuilding a system of economic regulation at the level of a larger entity", F. Scharpf, Gouverner l'Europe, Presses de Sciences po, 2000, p. 53 et seq.
* 508 For example: on the excessive imbalance mechanism and German surpluses: P. De Grauwe, "In search of symmetry in the eurozone", CEPS Policy Brief, No. 268, 2012.