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The ‘post-functionalist’ view that growing politicisation constrains further integration (‘constraining dissensus’) occupies a prominent place in contemporary European studies. However, in the case of the euro crisis, we observe a rise in contentious politics concomitant with a deepening of EU integration, namely in the areas of economic governance. This paper argues that the intervention of the ‘Troika’ in the struggles over the framing of the southern European crises is a key to this puzzle. The analysis of over 1200 public declarations produced by the three institutions from 2009 to 2016 shows that the Troika actively ‘responded’ to processes of heightened politicisation, reproducing the dominant crisis narrative of the southern European periphery and making the case for the adequacy and inevitability of austerity. The Troika’s success in framing the euro crisis as a result of domestic failure and moral hazard contributed to the legitimation of further integration of European economic governance.

National audience; The real causes of the euro crisis (2010-2013) are still questioned. For the European authorities, it is mainly due to the imperfection of the national institutions of the affected countries. In response, the policies implemented in these countries were to correct these imperfections by reforming deeply their national institutions in a move towards a balanced budget and improved competitiveness. In this article, it is argued that the origins of the crisis lie in the very functioning of the Single Market. By organizing the European economy according to the principles of free competition and by promoting the circulation of mobile production factors, the Single Market has strengthened the agglomeration mechanisms, which has led to a European industrial polarization. Although this dynamic has been beneficial for the core European countries, it accelerated the deindustrialization of peripheral economies. Moreover, the policies pursued since 2010 in the countries affected by the euro crisis have failed to correct the economic imbalances. It then appears that only a profound reconsideration of the rules that organize the functioning of the European Single Market would be likely to stop the current divergence dynamics of European economies.; Les causes de la crise de l'euro (2010-2013) ne font toujours pas consensus. Pour les autorités européennes, la crise serait essentiellement due à l'imperfection des institutions nationales des pays touchés. Les politiques engagées dans ces pays pour y répondre ont donc consisté à corriger ces imperfections en réformant profondément leurs institutions nationales dans une marche vers l'équilibre budgétaire et l'amélioration de la compétitivité. Dans cet article, nous soutenons à l'inverse que les origines de la crise sont à trouver dans le fonctionnement même du marché unique. En organisant l'économie européenne autour des principes d'une libre concurrence et en favorisant la circulation des facteurs de productions mobiles, le marché unique a renforcé les mécanismes d'agglomération, entrainant une polarisation industrielle au bénéfice des pays du coeur de l'Europe, avec pour conséquence l'accélération de la désindustrialisation des économies périphériques. Les politiques menées depuis 2010 dans les pays en crise n'ont de fait pas permis de corriger les déséquilibres économiques de la zone euro. Il apparaît donc que seule une remise en cause profonde des règles qui organisent le fonctionnement du marché unique européen serait susceptible d'enrayer la dynamique de divergence actuelle des économies européennes.

International audience; The euro crisis sheds light on the nature of alternative adjustment mechanisms in a heterogeneous monetary union. Exchange rate adjustments being impossible, it remains very few efficient alternative mechanisms. At the level of the whole eurozone the euro is close to its equilibrium parity. But the euro remains overvalued for Southern European countries, France included, and largely undervalued for Northern European countries, especially for Germany. This paper gives a new evaluation of these exchange rate misalignments inside the eurozone thanks to a FEER approach. In a second step, we use a two-country SFC model of a monetary union with endogenous interest rates and Eurobonds. Overvaluations amount to negative competitiveness shocks in Southern countries. In this respect, three main results are found. Firstly, an increase of intra-European financing by banks of northern countries or other institutions could contribute to reduce the debt burden and induce a partial recovery but public debt would increase. Secondly, the implementation of Eurobonds as a tool to partially mutualize European sovereign debt would have a rather similar positive impact with a public debt limited to 70 percent of GDP. Thirdly, Eurobonds could also be used to finance large European projects which could impulse a stronger recovery in the entire zone with stabilized current account balances.

International audience; This article explores how the European Central Bank escapes from the judicial and democratical controls of EU institutions

The euro crisis shed lights on the nature of alternative adjustment mechanisms in a monetary union characterized by a large heterogeneity. Exchange rate adjustments being impossible, it remains very few efficient alternative mechanisms. At the level of the whole eurozone the euro is close to its equilibrium parity. But the euro is strongly overvalued for Southern European countries, France included, and largely undervalued for Northern European countries, especially Germany. This paper gives a new evaluation of these exchange rate misalignments inside the eurozone, using a FEER approach, and examines the evolution of competitiveness. In a second step, we use a two-country SFC model of a monetary union with endogenous interest rates and Eurobonds issuance. Three main results are found. Firstly, facing a competitiveness loss in southern countries due to exchange rates misalignments, increasing intra-European financing by banks of northern countries or other institutions could contribute to reduce the debt burden and induce a partial recovery but public debt would increase. Secondly, the implementation of Eurobonds as a tool to partially mutualize European sovereign debt would have a rather similar positive impact, but with a public debt limited to 70 percent of GDP. Finally, Eurobonds could also be used to finance large European projects which could impulse a stronger recovery in the entire zone with stabilized current account imbalances. However, the creation of a European institution in charge of the issuance of the Eurobonds would face strong political obstacles.

The onset of euro crisis has rekindled the policy debate regarding credit risk interdependenceamong sovereign-bank nexus. In this vein, the importance of real sector is overlooked whileformulating corrective measures for the recovery of economic growth in EMU. This thesispresents a study that examined these issues in euro zone. First, we evaluate spillover effect ofeuro crisis on borrowing cost of non-financial firms in presence of austerity measures (Chapter-I).Our results suggest significant effect especially where creditor rights protection are weak. Inaddition during recent crisis, results indicate presence of credibility channel due to austeritymeasures whereas; there is slight indication of aggregate demand channel before crisis. Second,we find traditional function of bank’s liquidity creation as a significant conduit of sovereign distressto real sector (Chapter-II). Particularly, our main finding shows that bank liquidity risk acts as aconduit which propagates uncertainty towards non-financial firms and re-channels it back torespective government. Finally, we examine cross-market credit risk dynamics among sovereignbank-firm nexus to identify presence of contagion during euro crisis period (Chapter-III). Ourresults report grave evidence of credit risk contagion across sectors and member states incorresponding financial markets in EMU. Moreover like peripheral countries, simulation results toshock in core countries risk premia strongly provide evidence of contagion towards remainingeuro zone., Alors que le début de la crise de l'euro a relancé le débat sur l’interdépendance du risque decrédit et la relation dette bancaire-dette souveraine, l’importance du secteur réel est négligéedans l’élaboration des mesures de relance de la croissance économique dans la zone euro. Cettethèse se concentre sur ces questions au sein de la zone euro. D’abord, nous évaluons les effets«spillover» de la crise souveraine sur le coût de crédit des entreprises non financières enprésence des mesures d’austérité (Chapitre-I). Nos résultats indiquent un effet significatif de ladette publique sur le coût des prêts. En outre, en période de crise, les mesures d’austéritéimpactent significativement le coût de crédit tandis qu’avant la crise, on note une petite illustrationde la demande agrégée de Keynes. Ensuite, nous montrons que les fonctions traditionnelles desbanques, notamment celle de création de liquidité fragilisent le secteur souverain (Chapitre-II). Enparticulier, nous montrons que le risque de liquidité des banques agit comme un canal depropagation de l'incertitude vers les sociétés non financières et inversement. Enfin, nousexaminons la dynamique du risque de crédit sur la dette souveraine, les entreprises et lesbanques (Chapitre-III). Nos résultats montrent qu’il existe un risque de contagion sur les secteurset les marchés financiers de l’union monétaire. Par ailleurs, les résultats des simulations dechocs de primes de risque des pays «noyaux» de la zone euro confirment l’existence d’effetsindirects sur le reste de la zone. De plus, nous constatons un phénomène de fuite desinvestisseurs vers les valeurs refuges.

I present some evidence showing that the advanced economies' banks were contributing in spreading the Euro-crisis to the emerging economies. For this purpose, I test the common lender channel among other channels of contagion, by using international banking flows data. Based on a constructed crisis-index for the Euro area, I find that countries with higher level of exposure to GIIPS, deleveraged more in riskier periods, i.e. during periods with high crisis index. Among all emerging economies in our sample, the Latin American countries were not affected as much as the emerging economies Asia and Europe, despite their high exposures to Spain. While the impact of the Euro-crisis stopped to show sign in Asia after 2011, it continued to affect the emerging Europe. The Euro-area banks were deleveraging more in the Emerging Europe than their peers in non-Euro advanced economies, whereas most of their deleveraging in Asia happened in 2010. Although the results present evidence in favour of local impacts of the Euro-crisis, they show the importance of spillover through multinational banks.

The objective of the creation of this common currency, the euro, was to consolidate and deepen European integration and promote intra-Community trade. Beyond that, the single currency was also intended to improve the geopolitical weight of the European Union. Is the euro an instrument of power ? While the euro is a crucial step in the construction of Europe, the relationship between the euro, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European identity, from the very beginning of this common currency, is complex. Then the crisis of the euro which settled in 2009 provides other geopolitical insights, L’objectif de la création de cette monnaie commune qu’est l’euro était notamment de consoli-der et d’approfondir l’intégration européenne et de favoriser les échanges intracommunautaires. Au-delà, la monnaie unique avait aussi pour objet d’améliorer le poids géopolitique de l’Union européenne. L’euro est-il un instrument de puissance ? Si l’euro marque une étape cruciale dans la construction européenne, les rapports entre l’euro, la Banque centrale européenne (BCE) et l’identité européenne, dès l’origine de cette monnaie commune, sont complexes. Puis la crise de l’euro qui s’est installée en 2009 fournit d’autres éclairages géopolitiques.