Is the Semester Hard-Wired for Austerity or for Growth? (Interparliamentary Committee Meeting, January 2013)

Tyrimas 15-02-2013

During the Interparliamentary Committee Meeting, a debate took place on two key policy issues: the relationship between effectiveness and political legitimacy of the new framework for European Governance and the difficult cohabitation between austerity and growth. The need for a more active role of the European Parliament in the central elements of the European Semester (recommendations) was emphasised, as both accountability and political legitimacy are insufficiently accounted for. Assessment and policy prescriptions differed more widely when the austerity-growth nexus was debated, e.g. between those warning about the harsh effects on welfare and long-term growth induced by the large slack in effective demand and those calling for more tolerance towards market forces to correct competitiveness differentials and unsustainable current account imbalances between euro area countries.