The eurozone crisis has led to states with chronic budget deficits being put under surveillance using the 'European Semester'. But who is going to monitor these procedures?

Interview: Budgetary surveillance - a democratic tool?

As a direct result  of the eurozone debt crisis,

the European Commission  now has reinforced powers

with sanctions for countries  that don't play ball.

But what about democratic control  of this new procedure?

Answers from French MEP Jean-Paul  Gauzès for the European People's Party

and the Portuguese MEP Marisa Matias  from the group of the Left.

The new European Semester  forces the states

to better coordinate their own budgets'  preparation. Is this positive or negative?

I would say the assessment  of the first semester is encouraging

as it has allowed a quite complicated  mechanism to be set up

in which each partner must find their place,

but in the report on the next semester  we considered

that there's progress to be made,  and we give some ideas for that.

I think that budgetary coordination  between the Member States

The way the European Semester  is proposed now

represents more of a negative  than a positive step forward.

I say this for different reasons.  There is no symmetry or reciprocity.

Budgetary discipline in the European  Semester is more of a burden

for the Southern EU states than  for Northern or Central European ones.

If a country with a deficit  does not respect its commitments,

financial sanctions  will be applied quicker.

or they aren't law  but moral rules or whatever else.

The sanction must be proportionate  to the situation and take reality into account.

But I believe there must be an incentive for  the states to abide by their commitments.

Besides, what we highlight in the report

is that it's an essential element  of this economic coordination

and to evaluate how the recommendations  adopted by the states have been kept

so that they can be reoriented if needs be.

There'll be no advantages to a sanctions  mechanism or automatic sanctions.

Sanctions worsen the difficult situations  of countries that already have a deficit.

It worsens these difficulties  because normally,

in the framework of budgetary discipline,  there's a tendency to cut expenditure,

to privatise public services,  to liberalise working conditions...

everything is for growth and investment  and there is no space for anything else.

Does this procedure not undermine  the national parliaments' budgetary powers?

I think the room for manoeuvre of the  parliaments and governments is very small.

Governments do have some,  of course, but it is very small.

No democracy, in any part the world,  can be strong by itself.

What I mean is that European  democracy can only be strong

if democracy  in its Member States is strong.

We can't just cut short a fundamental  function of any state, of any democracy.

National parliaments' powers  aren't being undermined.

It's about creating  a strong economic union,

having better dialogue, cooperation among  the states and having common strategies.

So the aim of the European Semester  is to have this initial preparatory phase

for the states to coordinate their actions,  and then it's up to the national parliaments

to play the democratic scrutiny role for  each state's budgetary or financial policies.

So there could be conflict there  if the EP wanted to assume other powers

but we have all clearly said  that the European Parliament's role

is to control the decisions  taken in Brussels.

What do you think about the idea of  creating a specific budget for the eurozone?

One of Europe's problems  is that we launch lots of ideas

but they're not necessarily followed up.

Personally, a eurozone budget  could be of some use

as long as it's not an underhand way  of overcoming the fact

that the UK doesn't want  an increase in the EU budget.

It's not about dumping expenditure  on the eurozone

that the EU as a whole  doesn't want to incur.

So that's the first question mark for me.

The second is that if we keep on  coming up with new ideas

without bringing them into being  in a reasonable time

we'll lose the credibility which is very  important to restore confidence in Europe.

dealing with economic coordination  at a European level.

There must be a logic of solidarity  and a common European project,

Diverging views distance countries  from one another.

What we see is that the European budget,  the budget depending on the governments,

is increasingly reduced  when it should be increased.

On the other side the national budgets  are under attack.

I think the national budgets  need to have room for manoeuvre.