This chapter presents the theoretical framework ensuring the political equality of citizens, resulting in their ability to hold decision-makers to account. Arguing that the principal–agent framework is not suitable for conceptualising accountability beyond the state, it argues that accountability should be understood as a value in itself, rather than a mechanism. Drawing on sociological and philosophical approaches to solidarity and the cosmopolitan literature on equality, the framework argues for an equilibrium between the principles of solidarity and equality that better provides for the political equality of citizens as the central normative concern of accountability. The chapter then applies this normative framework to the Economic and Monetary Union. By exploring the Treaties and the existing jurisprudence of the Court of Justice, the chapter finally defines the notions of the individual, equality, solidarity, and the common interest.

This chapter deals with the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), which is designed as a composite structure, where supervisory tasks are carried out by the European Central Bank and national supervisory authorities. Crucially, both supervisors apply the EU as well as national law. That structure muddles the available accountability routes for the individual. The chapter first presents the legal framework and the organisation of the SSM. highlighting a number of accountability distortions problematic for the political equality of citizens. The chapter next focuses on the judicial review concerning the SSM at the EU level, including the jurisprudence of the General Court and the Court of Justice. This analysis is once again conducted in respect of the national level. In both instances, the chapter looks specifically at how courts dealt with questions of access, remedies, and any possible interpretation of the principles of equality and solidarity. The chapter finally reflects upon the role that judicial interactions play in delivering legal accountability within the SSM.

This chapter addresses the tensions between the high level of independence granted to the European Central Bank (ECB) under the Treaties and its accountability. In a first step, it sets out the legal framework of monetary policy within the system of the European System of Central Banks and explains in more detail the quantitative easing programmes of the ECB. It goes on to provide a summary of the back-and-forth litigation on the scope of monetary policy between the Court of Justice and the Bundesverfassungsgericht in Gauweiler and Weiss. Next, the chapter focuses on the judicial review of the monetary policy decisions by the Court of Justice and the national courts. Both these sections follow the same structure: first, they analyse access to courts and remedies; and second, they show how the courts under analysis approached the principles of equality and solidarity, for the purposes of achieving the common interest. The chapter closes with an examination of judicial interactions between EU and national courts and the role these play in the legal accountability of the ECB.

This chapter first introduces the main debates on the legitimacy of judicial review. It then turns to the most problematic examples of non-accountable decision-making that recently took place in the EMU, causing problems for individuals accessing fora of legal accountability, most visibly in the reduction of the protection of fundamental rights. The purpose of this exercise is to offer a sneak-peek preview of what went wrong, how (the lack of) judicial review contributed to this problem, and why traditional arguments against judicial review do not work in this context. Given that the EMU is an area characterised by high redistributive effects coupled with a wide discretion on the part of decision-makers, courts are in the perfect position to ensure that such decisions meet the Treaty objectives of the common interest. Any review of decisions in the EMU entails two duties. First, the starting point for courts must be an assumption of a full review. Second, decision-makers have an extensive duty of giving reasons for their decisions and put to the court the arguments on the nature of their discretion and how they used it. The chapter closes with conclusions on how the proposed framework will be used in the book.

The Introduction presents the main problems related to accountability that arose in the wake of the financial crisis and the EU’s response. It shows that the legal nature of financial assistance, the high independence of the European Central Bank, and the composite nature of the Single Supervisory Mechanism all contribute to a decreased ability of the individual to hold decision-makers in the Economic and Monetary Union to account. The Introduction then proposes to rethink legal accountability beyond the state by departing from the principal–agent theory that pervades accountability research. Instead, accountability should be understood as a vehicle for achieving the common interest and thus as a value in itself. In addition, the Introduction justifies the book’s focus on legal accountability and explains its relationship to other forms of accountability. Lastly, the Introduction outlines the structure of the book.

The Conclusion of the book joins the theoretical propositions from Chapters 1 and 2 with the empirical findings from the case studies carried out in Chapters 3–5. It is here that an assessment is made of how legal accountability has so far been able to ensure that decision-makers in the EMU are held to account by politically equal citizens. In addition, the Conclusion imagines how judicial review should look like according to the normative proposal from Chapter 2. As a final message, the Conclusion underlines the limits of judicial review in respect of democratic deliberation and participation that is to shape and sustain the common interest.

This chapter explores the role accorded to the principle of equality of Member States in the case law of the Court of Justice and national courts reviewing measures of financial assistance. At the same time, it investigates the extent to which the common interest, as the expression of the principle of solidarity, features as a consideration before those courts. The chapter opens with a brief description of financial assistance measures to gain a sense of how their versatile nature influenced judicial review. It then analyses judicial review of the European Stability Mechanism and the resulting Memoranda of Understanding at the national level in respect of access, remedies, and the interpretation of the principles of solidarity and equality. An analogous exercise is then conducted in respect of the EU courts. The chapter lastly reflects upon judicial interactions taking place between the EU and the national level and comments on the overall status of legal accountability in the EU judicial space.

The book ends with an Epilogue that looks into the future: still in its infancy, the Next Generation EU (NGEU) is the perfect guinea pig for testing the theoretical propositions of Chapters 1 and 2, taking into account the lessons learned throughout the case studies of Chapters 3 to 5. The Epilogue presents the legal framework of the NGEU and the way it has been grounded in the Treaties. The choices of the legal bases of the instruments included in the NGEU brought to light debates on their appropriateness: the scholarship contests the use of the solidarity clause from Article 122 TFEU, highlights a possible breach of the balanced budget rule from Article 310(1) TFEU and doubts the appropriateness of Article 175(3) TFEU from Cohesion Policy as the basis for the spending side of the NGEU. The Epilogue then turns to the used and possible avenues of judicial review before the national and EU courts, to close the book with some final thoughts on what awaits individuals when holding decision makers in the EMU to account before courts.

EUs economic governance is characterised by the tension in the relationship between Member States preservation of national budgetary autonomy embedded in the no-bailout clause and the prohibition of monetary financing, on the one hand, and the need to manage a shared currency area through a common and independent central bank, on the other. Accordingly, the aim of this contribution is to present the ways in which this tension materialises itself in constitutional conflict between national constitutional courts and the Court of Justice in the monetary field. The analysis will be based on the premise that, taking into account the EUs constitutional setup, constitutional conflict is a regular occurrence: not a bug but a feature of the systems functioning. In that sense, this contribution will look at the ways in which constitutional conflict between the EU and the national level can contribute to and improve legal accountability of the ECB in the monetary field.