Democracy, Translucidity and Accountability: The Eurozone vs. The Democratic Right to Know

• Date: 01 March 2017
• Author: Agustín José Menéndez
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12221
• Published date: 01 March 2017

Democracy, Translucidity and

Accountability: The Eurozone vs. The

Democratic Right to Know

One thing iscertain about Brexit: Theallegedly ‘unpredictable’outcome of the referendum

has fed a new scholarly fad. ‘Instant’working papers, instant special issues, even instant

books have already been written, dealing with the backstage of the Brexit campaign, the

‘causes’of the popular ‘revolt’and the plots and counterplots in the corridors of power

and the antechambers of spin doc tors. The supply of futurologis t analyses of the

consequencesof Brexit to the (dis)United Kingdomare also in strong supply. The paradox

of Brexit as a ‘pop-out’academi c industry is that most of the ent husiastic academic

entrepreneurs that have built the field implicitly endorse the perspective of most radical

Brexiteers by focusing alm ost exclusively on the Bri tish side of the affair. As if Brexit

was an entirely British issue, as if the state of the European Union did not influence the

outcome, as if the United Kingdom leaving the European Union was not bound to affect

the European Union too. Li stening to some of the debate s, one might be forgiven for

entertaining thethought that Brexit is even more paradoxical than the unwritten butvery

written British Constituti on, given that it boils down to the divorce of a po lity that

remained rather unengaged all th ese years. Thus, it is not far-fetched t o conclude that

Brexit requires scholarly analysis that tackles the structural causes and the structural

implications of a momentous decision for both the United Kingdom and the European

Union. Majone’s sober and balanced piece provides a much needed counterpoint to the

mass of on-the-hoof analysis. Instead of focusing on the short-term vagaries of electoral

politics, or divining the outcomes of the ongoing bargaining games, Majone sets Brexit

in its long-term context, sho wing the extent to which it is a further ( and still very

important) symptom of the st ructural crises the Europea n Union is going through.

Perhaps even more important ly, Majone renews his plea for thi nking European

integration along very different lines from the ones favoured by mainstream EU studies,

namely as a concentricset of functional ‘unions’, capableof complementing the capacities

of Member Stateswithout eroding the basis of theirdemocratic legitimacy. BothMajone’s

diagnosis and prognosis are bound to be highly polemical, in the best ELJ tradition.

The European Central Ban k (ECB) has gained major n ew formal competences an d

substantive powers as a result of the many transf ormations triggered by t he manifold

European crises. This more than justifies reconsidering the foundations of the legitimacy

of the ECB, and more specifically, how the said legitimacy depends on the institutional

setup and procedures tha t ensure the ECB acts in a transp arent fashion and remains

accountable to supranational and national representa tive institutions. This is precisely

what Curtin invites us to do in her contribution. The accrual of new powers to the ECB,

both through explicit ch anges in the law, and perhaps eve n more so, due to emerging

conventions among European and national institutions, requires that we reconsider the

legitimacy equation of the EC B, that we not only test both the a ccountability and the

transparency of the ECB, but al so, and perhaps above all, the re lationship(s) between

the two. Curtin cautiously leans towards (on-the-alert) scepticism. There is no doubt that

the ECB has become more active in presenting itself as a transparent institution, and has

European LawJournal, Vol. 23, No. 1-2, August 2017,pp. 2–8.

© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.