The European Union’s accountability deficit

Abstract

The literature often addresses the European Union’s “democratic deficit”. This paper addresses a problem that could be called the “accountability deficit”. The European Court of Auditors has never issued an unqualified positive opinion on the legality and regularity of the EU budget execution. The European Commission has developed several instruments to further the member states accountability of EU funds. This paper argues that one of these instruments, the member state declaration, seems promising and describes the Dutch experience.