European Economic Governance
Structures Post Crisis
Brigid Laffan
Director
Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
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Crises are “open moments”-system changing and system
creating
CRISIS
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WEAK
Input
Formal
Legitimacy
EU Legitimacy
Output
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Social
Legal
•Audit
Political
Accountability
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Europe’s
Compound Polity
• Pooled Sovereignty-Divided
Accountability
• Horizontal and Vertical Accountability
• EU- A Marbled Cake Polity
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Creating a
Genuine EMU
One of the guiding principles is that democratic
control
and accountability should occur at the level at
which the decisions are taken. The implementation
of
this guiding principle is key to ensuring the
effectiveness of the integrated financial, budgetary
and
economic policy frameworks.
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‘’We need more binding and more
ambitious rules and commitments for the Euro area
Member States. They should reflect that sharing a
single currency means sharing responsibility for
the Euro area as a hole. They should pave the way
for a new quality of cooperation and integration
within the Euro area (Letter from Chancellor Merkel
and President Sarkozy to Herman Van Rompuy, 7th
December 2011 http://www.ambafranceuk.org/President-Sarkozy-s-press,20171).
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Crisis Responses
• Crisis Management
• Bailouts (4 member
states + Spanish
banks)/Troika
• Politics of austerity
and retrenchment
• ECB non-standard
measures
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• Crisis Prevention
• Task Force reported
in Autumn 2010
–
–
–
–
Euro+ Pact
Six Pack Legislation
Two Pack
Fiscal Compact
• European Semester
• Banking Union
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European Semester
Ex ante
guidance
Calendar Approach
Horizontal
Commission
(home work re.
aggregate,
individual
member states,
surveillance)
Council-CSR
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• Vertical
• National
Finance
Ministries
• + Governments
Parliaments
• EP
• Six Pack and
Semester
Introduction of the
"economic dialogue". It
established the right of EP
committees to invite the
President of the Council, of
the Commission and of the
European Council to appear
before the committee and
discuss coordination and
surveillance measures.
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• Article 13 TSCG provides for
the EP and of national
parliaments to "discuss"
policies and other issues
covered by the TSCG.
• National Parliaments
• When and how to engage?
Political
Accountability
• Democratic politics-incumbents and
traditional parties under pressure
• Challenger parties +Electoral Volatility
• Eurozone- a low trust regime
• The Politics of Constrained Choice
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• Fiscal Consolidation
Need for
Balance
Flexibility
• Structural Reform
Politicisation
• Growth and Employment
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