Can parliaments contribute efficiently to budgetary processes while preserving fiscal discipline ? Greater budgetary transparency and a stable taxation system are crucial challenges for emerging economies concerned with the efficient management of public finance and the fight against corruption. Considerably neglected during the first stage of economic reforms, legislative budgetary institutions reappeared with the second wave of reforms in financial administrations. However, due to the predominance of their executive rôle as well as their own lack of knowledge on the subject, parliaments often have little to do with budgetary matters. Although they possess a wide range of powers in budgetary affairs, only rarely do they manage to make efficient and responsible use of them. The article examines the contribution of parliaments to budgetary processes in developing countries with both presidential regimes and centralized budgetary systems, and evaluates the conditions and constraints of a greater parliamentary role in budgetary matters. It analyses the political economy of budgetary processes in Latin America, underlining the risks of insufficient government participation in budget management and the advantages of parliamentary control of public finances. It argues that in Latin America as elsewhere, the main challenge of parliamentary participation in the budgetary process consists in preserving the advantage of a strong executive authority able to ensure fiscal discipline, while at the same time procuring the restraint and institutional counterbalance that guarantee financial responsibility, the rendering of accounts and democratic control. Good fiscal governance is the fruit of a harmonious blend of government prerogatives and parliamentary control