The European Parliament’s Contribution to the EU Budget: A Power Game

Abstract

This chapter reflects on the use made by the European Parliament (EP) of its budgetary prerogatives granted by the successive treaties and developed in the interinstitutional agreements over the last decades. Through the emergence of interinstitutional cooperation and soft law to solve conflicts, the EP managed to support evolving legislation and to obtain new competences. The chapter explores how the EP has battled for maintaining the balance of powers between the two arms of the budgetary authority but also sometimes between its legislative and budgetary branches. It concludes that the power game to consolidate a fully fledged part of the budgetary authority continues and faces new challenges in the aftermath of Lisbon.