Resumen de The potential of budgetary discharge for political accountability: Which lessons from the case of Frontex?

Michele Gigli

• With the discharge procedure of the 2020 budget of Frontex, the European Parliament played a pri-mary role in addressing the policy drift of the most important decentralised agency operating in thearea of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ). This case demonstrates the potential of the dischargetool in steering the performance of decentralised agencies at a time when the mandate of theseagencies within the EU executive order is affected by a structural accountability deficit. Confrontedwith a Rule of Law crisis in the AFSJ, the European Parliament has effectively leveraged the evolvingnormative framework to imbue the discharge process with significant political oversight functions.In this article, I aim to show that a constitutional dimension of the discharge procedure can be con-ceptualised, enabling the European Parliament to reaffirm its political account-holder role as derivedfrom the Treaties and ensure agencies' compliance with their EU-oriented mandate.