The European Parliament’s snappily named annual financial discharge procedure – designed to allow MEPs to scrutinise past EU spending and to hold institutions accountable – has once again hit a roadblock.
This week, the Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee recommended denying approval to the Council for its 2023 spending, a move it has made every year since 2009 due to “a lack of cooperation” from the institution, the Parliament said.
While it’s unlikely to trigger the kind of major ramifications which prompted the 1998 collapse of the Santer Commission after a discharge was rejected, it lays bare the deepening rift between the two heavyweight institutions.
The discharge procedure is a technical tool that allows the Parliament to review budget implementation across EU institutions and issue recommendations, though ‘denying discharge’ carries no direct legal consequences.
In practice, the yearly procedure has become a symbolic stand-off. The Council, in particular, resists MEP attempts to scrutinise how it operates, arguing that such reviews go beyond the legal remit of the discharge procedure.
“The European Parliament has developed over the years an additional practice of pronouncing itself on policies and activities of other institutions in general”, one EU official said. “The Council is of the view that this goes far beyond the scope of budgetary discharge.”
Following the committee’s recommendation, the European Parliament plenary reviews the discharge reports and decides whether to grant it or not. Not granting it has no legal consequences, but carries ceremonial weight.
In 1998, the Santer Commission collapsed after Parliament withheld discharge, triggering the resignation of the entire College of Commissioners the following year. However, more than a decade of annual parliamentary rejection has largely left the Council unphased.
“There’s no cooperation, because they think it’s beneath them,” an MEP told Euractiv, describing the Council’s way to deal with the Parliament’s yearly procedure.
The fact that the Council has ignored it year after year, exposes the deep imbalance of power within the EU machine, but the Parliament’s options to act further are limited.
While the Parliament could stand its ground in budget negotiations, an escalation would mean “mutual assured destruction,” one lawmaker warned. As the Council plays a central role in EU budget talks, it could escalate into a battle over spending that bleeds into talks over the next long-term budget starting in 2028.
“There’s no majority to go to war,” another MEP said.
Jacob Wulff Wold contributed reporting.
(vib, jp)