Much ado about nothing? The two worlds of parliamentary policymaking and the absence of conflicts with increased budgetary coordination in the Economic and Monetary Union

The literature on parliamentary representation in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) generally assumes that increased budgetary coordination reduces political participation options of national parliamentarians in budgetary politics, imposing Brussels-made policy solutions and paradigms. This research unpacks budgetary politics from the perspectives of representatives of two of the larger EU member states and investigates their motives for participation through ethnographic interviews. This article finds for MPs on budgetary committees in the lower chambers in France and Germany that they perceive the European Semester as a largely procedural and depoliticised exercise. Surprisingly and in contrast with the literature, MPs do not see the European Semester as a danger to their participation capacities in the budgetary process. Quite the opposite, they welcome the exercise because it provides them with greater participation options and more information. The choice of different participation modes in EU budgetary coordination can be understood in light of the socialisation of MPs into different roles. The article argues that research on legitimacy standards needs to pay greater attention to the world behind the formal use of parliamentary control instruments and the ‘parliamentary theatre’ of the plenary to understand what contextualised standards of democracy should look like.