This article aims to bring the accountability of the EU executive out of the shadows by tracing the development of the current accountability landscape around the main EU’s executive actors. It looks at the development and the diversification of accountability forums (and mechanisms) in the EU: what forums and arrangements have come into being for holding the EU executive powers accountable? Instead of focusing on single individual accountability branches, this article examines the development of accountability in the EU by treating it as a complex landscape. And rather than assuming equilibrium, a starting point is the evolving nature of this landscape. On the basis of this exploration, the article seeks to understand the way in which the EU's institutional accountability framework has evolved through a patchwork of arrangements, and how this contributes to the emergence of a complex, multilayered governance landscape in order to fit within today’s presumptions about how power should be controlled and accountability achieved.

Points for practitioners

The landscape of accountability institutions in the EU is slowly becoming denser. The shift from national, state-based policy-making to the EU level and the continuous expansion of the executive sphere in the EU is accompanied by a growing concern about how to organize democratic accountability in the complex multi-level web of European governance. The establishment of new watchdog institutions (such as an ombudsman, an anti-corruption office, ethical committees, auditors, a whistleblower protection act) and strengthened scrutiny points to the increased relevance of accountability and control over the EU executive.