The fall of the Santer Commission in 199~ against a background of allegations of fraud, maladministration and chronic mismanagement had the effect of firmly placing accountability on the political agenda of the European Union (EU) institutions and also marks the start of my personal interest in the area. In addition, the main problems occurred during the process of ratification of the Maastricht Treaty in conjunction with the non-ratification of the Constitutional Treaty boosted my interest in the area of accountability in the EU. With these considerations in mind, I aim with this thesis to explore further the concept of accountability. Therefore, in the first chapter I put together the various contributions that have been made in the legal literature regarding accountability's meaning. The purpose of this exercise is to understand the umbrella concept of accountability and to identify the origins and the meaning of accountability. The desirable aim is to provide a common understanding and or definition by reviewing the relevant literature and thus try to cover what accountability means. This exercise in definition is not as straightforward as it seems and is in fact more problematical than might at first be supposed. Hence, an explanation is given in order to understand what is, and what is not, meant by the concept of accountability while attempting to build an appropriate foundation which will be used as the essential tool for the analysis in the following chapters.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:571471 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Costa, Marios |
| Publisher | University of Essex |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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