The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union encourages us to renewour commitment to the European unification process. Today, having the courage torenew our commitment means daring to make Europe more democratic. There is nodoubt that strengthening parliamentarianism is the right way to confer greaterdemocratic legitimacy on decisions taken at the EU level.This is especially true for economic policy coordination in the European Union, andmore specifically, the European Semester. We can not accept that the current crisisallows executives to take away the key prerogative of parliaments, the right to adopt abudget, thus denying them to exercise effective democratic control over fiscalpolicies.In this context, the cooperation between the representatives of the citizens at anational and European level in economic policy is essential. We therefore feel that thebeginning of our cooperation in scrutinising the actions of the executive at a nationaland European level should be placed on a formal footing.The European Parliament believes that this -among others- could take the form of aparliamentary week, during which national and European Parliamentarians wouldtogether scrutinise the European Commission's Annual Growth Survey and the EUannual guidelines for national budgets.To this end I am happy to invite representatives from your Parliament to attend thefirst edition of the

parliamentary week on the European Semester,

which will takeplace from 28 - 30 January 2013 in Brussels. The practical details regarding thisspecial event, as well as a detailed draft programme will be forwarded in due courseto your Parliament's services for relations with the European Parliament. I sincerelyhope that you will be able to accept my invitation, and I am looking forward towelcoming your Parliament's representatives to the European Parliament on 28January 2013.I am certain that our interparliamentary meetings will contribute to strengthening theparliamentary and democratic dimension of the Union by ensuring more transparencyand efficiency in the legislative process.