On 16 March 1999, for the first time in the history of the European project, the twenty-member College of Commissioners resigned before the end of its term. This took place under the presidency of the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg Jacques Santer, after the submission to the European Parliament (EP) of a Report by a Committee of Independent Experts, working under the auspices of the Parliament and the Commission, which substantiated allegations of fraud, mismanagement and nepotism. The Report came two months after a motion of censure tabled by the EP, which failed to come through, though not without showing...

This chapter will attempt to provide an account of why the EU system of governance presents such serious shortcomings in terms of political responsibility. It will start by going through the principal theories of European integration, in an effort to see what kinds of explanation could be derived from them with regard to the EU’s alleged failures of political responsi bility. Neo-functionalist, liberal intergovernmentalist and new institutionalist approaches will be shown to yield different accounts.

By adopting a historical–sociological institutionalist framework, this chapter will go on to show, more specifically, why the problems of political responsibility in the EU...

The aim of this chapter will be to show what political responsibility refers to and why political responsibility is desirable in all systems of governance, including the EU. The two main ways in which political responsibility is understood – that is, as a set of qualities (or virtues) and as a feature or an organising principle of a system of governance will be examined and the relationship that binds them will be explored. It will be demonstrated that these are only two different aspects of the same phenomenon: political responsibility is a principle that calls for certain requirements to be...

This chapter will examine accountability as a sub-practice of EU governance. It will first distinguish between political and other forms of accountability, then try to spell out the basic rationale behind political accountability and examine what we do – and do not do – when we hold someone to account. Next, it will be shown that in order for accountability to be effective, the institutional structure in a system of governance must meet two requirements: what we will call ‘check’ and ‘forum’. In the second part of the chapter we will examine the extent to which the requirements of accountability...

Identifiability is a feature of the organisation of political institutions which ensures that the following question can always be answered in the operation of a system of governance: who was responsible? This is an important political question – especially when things go wrong. If it cannot be answered, accountability is rendered impossible (Beaud 2000: 24). It is therefore important to explore how we go about answering the identifiability question. Two accounts of how one is to answer will be put forward: the ‘causal’ and ‘institutional’ accounts. It will be argued that the causal account runs into trouble when confronted with...

Identifiability enables us to locate responsibility for political outcomes and thereby makes the operation of the practice of accountability possible, otherwise we would not be able to hold agents to account. But a system of governance has another feature whose absence or failure makes accountability impossible: openness. Without information about the workings of the process of governance, political agents cannot form judgements about political responsibility; they cannot understand why a political agent is responsible, and they cannot form an opinion about why that particular political agent should – or should not – be held to account, by whom and for...

In seeking to reach a verdict for the EU’s responsibility deficit, the following chapter will attempt to summarise findings and evaluate the current state of affairs by looking at three interrelated questions. First, what can we make of the current shortcomings of responsibility on the institutional side after having examined the EU from the point of view of accountability, identifiability and openness? Second, how do recent developments, and particularly the failure to ratify the Constitutional Treaty and the agreement to forge ahead with the Lisbon Treaty, affect our assessment? Finally, what might be the long-term effects of the latest developments...