D-EMU provides highly innovative research on a crucial challenge for democracy in the EU: the legitimacy of governance in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). It focuses on conflicts within everyday democratic practices of domestic policy elites participating in the budgetary exercise of the European Semester – identifying a substantial gap in the literature so far. Developing an innovative interdisciplinary approach and using a mixed methods design analysing four cases (France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy), D-EMU contributes a) to our understanding of the variation of legitimacy conflicts in the EMU and jumpstarts b) a debate about contextualised democracy standards for EU decision-making. The project combines ethnographic and reflexive quantitative methods with conceptual history. D-EMU commits to data sustainability in qualitative research by providing a report on the research process in order to make the qualitative data fully reusable by qualitative scholars. D-EMU is led by Dr Anja Thomas at the Fulda University of Applied Sciences under the supervision of Prof. Dr Claudia Wiesner, a renowned scholar for conceptual history of the European Union. Two secondments (European University Institute and Centre for Research in Economics and Statistics) complement the Fellowship to allow specific methods and dissemination training. Supervision will be closely coordinated; a detailed work and dissemination plan ensure progress and sustainable impact of the project. The MSCA will expand Dr Anja Thomas’ current work on parliaments and make it a beneficial preparation for a larger grant proposal to allow her to become a leader in her field. Fulda University of Applied Sciences commits to fully support the fellow with administrative and additional financial resources, the researcher will contribute to the PhD training at her host institution. Dr Anja Thomas has substantial experience in research and teaching at leading universities, notably in France and the UK.