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In Europe's Crisis of Legitimacy: Governing by Rules and Ruling by Numbers in the Eurozone, Vivien Schmidt authoritatively charts how the European Union weathered the crisis of its single currency in the 2010s, gradually moving from fiscal austerity and structural reform to a more systemic solution and flexible interpretation of the euro's governing rules. Using a discursive institutionalist approach in combination with a "systems theory" understanding of democratic decision making, Schmidt persuasively argues that we need to look at the euro problem as a fundamentally political problem that lacked democratic legitimacy as long as technocrats were in charge of policy solutions. Schmidt argues that the euro crisis needs to be broached from the point of view of the E.U.'s split-level legitimacy as well as the growing politicization of E.U. governance in an era of increasing populism and rising Euroskepticism. Schmidt's application of discursive institutionalism allows readers to judge for themselves whose and which ideas mattered, why and in what way they were implemented, and how they gradually evolved over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ordoliberalism is often recognized as a powerful ideational source during the Euro crisis; however, there is no pure ordoliberal vision of European integration, and ordoliberal ideas have been used to support both Eurosceptical and Europeanist positions during the crisis. This article reconstructs the ordoliberal theoretical and political debate on European integration and argues that there exist two ordoliberal paradigms of European integration: one bottom-up, whereby the commitment to liberal economic policies at the national level is the precondition for a liberal international order; the other top-down, whereby a liberal international order can help the establishment of a liberal order at the national level. The article compares two ordoliberal visions of the international order: Wilhelm Röpke's 'liberalism from below' (which follows the bottom-up logic) and Viktor Vanberg's 'competitive federalism' (which follows the top-down logic). Then, it explores the ordoliberal political debate on two episodes of the European integration process – the Maastricht Treaty and the Euro crisis – to argue that the bottom-up and the top-down logics underpinned, respectively, Eurosceptical and Europeanist arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do integration crises reinforce legal differentiation in European integration? Are differentiated EU policies under stress prone to cascading opt-outs? We argue that integration crises as such are unlikely to cause further fragmentation in already differentiated EU regimes. If the EU decides to adopt new treaties and laws in response to the crises, however, these are likely to reproduce and extend pre-existing patterns of differentiation. Empirically, this study offers within-case counterfactual analyses of differentiation in the Euro and the migration crises. Whereas the Euro crisis triggered a major institutional change in the Eurozone, the member states could not agree on a thorough reform of the asylum system. Correspondingly, we observe excess differentiation in the Euro crisis but stable differentiation in the migration crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The architecture of European labour policy has changed in the past years of the euro crisis and its management. While in the pre-crisis phase EU labour policy still had a mainly symbolic character, the EU crisis management gave it a much more binding character. The article analyses the continuities and shifts in European labour policy against the background of austerity and crisis policy arguing that a new labour policy complex was able to emerge at the European level. While institutional shifts were considerable, the market-liberal orientation of labour policy remained in place. However, it was radicalized with the resilience approach. The article therefore provides an overview of the continuity and change of European labour policy in the euro crisis on the basis of institutional and discursive shifts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the development of financial assistance in the Eurozone since 2010. It argues that reforms to instruments and bodies, notably the European Financial Stability Facility, the European Stability Mechanism, and the current Covid-19 recovery fund, are best explained by a re-occurring pattern of negotiations between potential creditors and debtors based on common Eurozone interests and national cost-benefit considerations. Building on a liberal intergovernmentalist approach, this article shows how this pattern influenced the step-by-step reform of financial assistance in the Eurozone. The threat to Eurozone stability served as a constant factor encouraging member states to expand and deepen the assistance formula. Creditors’ cost-benefit considerations were key for retaining disincentives, a limited liability for common debt, and intermediary borrowing and lending within the financing design. However, on the back of common Eurozone interests, debtors were able to push for an increase in assistance, an expansion of assistance into areas of banking sector support, and a softening of moral hazard elements in the more recent Covid-19 pandemic. Due to creditors’ continuous insistence on safeguards and limited burden-sharing, reform outcomes were repeatedly unable to resolve the difficulties at hand.

Conventional wisdom about the European sovereign debt crisis and its handling defends that fiscal austerity is unpopular and that external conditionality and/or imposition on national democracies generates backlash. However, not enough research has addressed this question: How willing are citizens to accept unpopular policies imposed on their national governments by European institutions? Would they object to unpopular policies less if these were coming from their national representatives? In this article, we propose a survey experiment, complemented by four focus groups, to test whether citizens' willingness to accept economic policies varies depending on whether the decision originates in the national parliament or in EU institutions. The experiment was conducted in Spain in 2017. Our results show that agreement with a particular policy does not depend on the policy-making actor but on the policy's content. The bitter pill of austerity is no less bitter because elected politicians decide it at home. Similarly, EU 'diktat' does not make a popular policy less popular. Our conclusion is that Spanish citizens during the Euro crisis objected to the policy of austerity due in large part to its content and not to the EU intervention in favour of implementing it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the European Union a technocracy? Observers and practitioners of EU politics have debated this deceptively simple question for decades, without arriving at a clear answer. To a large extent, this is due to the elusive nature of technocracy itself, a phenomenon that is hard to define with precision, and even harder to measure empirically. To tackle this problem, the article presents a novel approach to technocracy in the EU based on the study of bargaining settings, in which political and technical actors interact horizontally and simultaneously—as opposed to sequentially—thus allowing for a better appraisal of the power of experts. Using data gathered by the 'EMU Choices' project, we apply this alternative framework to the analysis of negotiations on the reform of the Economic and Monetary Union over the period 2010–15, focusing on the role of two institutional actors: the European Central Bank and the European Commission. While we find some evidence for technocracy in EMU negotiations, this has been mostly at the hands of the hybrid Commission rather than the quintessentially technical ECB. This suggests both caution in dismissing the EU as hopelessly technocratic, and the need for further research on the nature of the Commission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper1 scrutinizes the transformation of the European economic governance. This is a framework conceived by European Union decision-makers to establish institutions and processes – coordination and harmonisation of economic policies – in order to achieve economic and social development for the European Union and its citizens. Prior to the global financial crisis, the European economic governance was incomplete, poorly coordinated and in certain macroeconomic areas insufficient. The international financial crisis and the “Euro crisis” compelled a much deeper and more comprehensive governance structure from the decision-makers of the European Union. Despite the rapid emergence of Community-level crisis management mechanisms, ad hoc responses and processes prevailed till the turning point of the “Euro crisis” in 2012. Since then, the transformation the European economic governance continued in a heavily institutionalized and coordinated form, providing a long-term vision for the European Union and the Eurozone. European economic governance has been substantially expanded, institutional arrangements cover fiscal policy, monetary policy, the supervision of the financial system, policies related to structural and competitiveness issues. Moreover, comprehensive and coordinated reform strategies were launched, based on the European Commission’s priorities. In this paper, we carry out a simple analysis to detect whether the new European economic governance has corrected the pre-crisis country-specific risks and institutional flaws.

This article analyses the development of financial assistance in the Eurozone since 2010. It argues that reforms to instruments and bodies, notably the European Financial Stability Facility, the European Stability Mechanism, and the current Covid-19 recovery fund, are best explained by a re-occurring pattern of negotiations between potential creditors and debtors based on common Eurozone interests and national cost-benefit considerations. Building on a liberal intergovern-mentalist approach, this article shows how this pattern influenced the step-by-step reform of financial assistance in the Eurozone. The threat to Eurozone stability served as a constant factor encouraging Member States to expand and deepen the assistance formula. Creditors’ cost-benefit considerations were key for retaining disincentives, a limited liability for common debt, and intermediary borrowing and lending within the financing design. However, on the back of common Eurozone interests, debtors were able to push for an increase in assistance, an expansion of assistance into areas of banking sector support, and a softening of moral hazard elements in the more recent Covid-19 pandemic. Due to creditors’ continuous insistence on safeguards and limited burden-sharing, reform outcomes were repeatedly unable to resolve the difficulties at hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews how different integration theories interpret which political actors mattered in governmental preference formation during the euro crisis. It presents new evidence on the respective influence of national governments, European Union (EU) intergovernmental bodies – including the Eurogroup, the European Council and expert committees – supranational institutions, as well as parliamentary forces and socio-economic interest groups. Contrary to understandings of domestic preference formation as an insulated process, which precedes EU negotiations in the context of two-level games, new data on all 28 member states reveals that decision making by heads of governments and finance ministries was to a large extent decoupled from other domestic interests while EU-level forums for collective decision making played a constitutive role. The findings endorse in particular new intergovernmentalist interpretations of the euro crisis. By empirically testing competing theoretical interpretations of configurations of actor influence, this article proposes an alternative route to the study of preference formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Depoliticization has emerged as a key concept for explaining the legitimation of austerity during the euro crisis: in the face of growing social unrest over their austerity-based crisis management, EU and national policy elites would attempt to remove the political character of economic policy-making, thus insulating budgetary issues from public deliberation and party competition. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to the actual success of depoliticizing strategies in effectively achieving these aims. By setting up a dialogue between two research programmes on (de)politicization that have developed so far in isolation, the article articulates a new framework for studying the impacts of depoliticization. Empirically, the analysis focuses on the process of discursive depoliticization of budgetary policy in Spain in the context of the austerity-oriented budgetary reforms implemented between 2010 and 2013. Methodologically, this process of (contested) discursive depoliticization is examined by developing a relational content analysis of the parties' electoral manifestos and newspapers' opinion articles on budgetary policy that were published in the three electoral campaigns held in Spain before, during and after the euro crisis. The analysis shows that the EU-led depoliticization of budgetary policy encountered important political limits in Spain, in fact paradoxically promoting a re-politicizing backlash. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of its introduction is threefold: We start from a conceptual clarification of preference formation, defining it provisionally as a political process 'by which social actors decide what they want and what to pursue'. After an analysis of different conceptual and theoretical approaches, the introduction offers a critique of liberal intergovernmentalism, one of the major explanatory frameworks of preference formation in European Union studies. This critique centres on the context in which national preference formation took place during the European Monetary Union crisis. This special issue argues that the conceptualisation of preference formation as state-based, unidirectional and unchanged by the regime is deeply problematic. Preference formation is typically messy and non-linear and rarely closed to the possibility that both preferences and positions may change, sometimes radically, it is even more complex, context-sensitive, and open to a wide range of influences in a multi-level system such as the European Union. In other words, the traditional understanding of preference formation as a purely domestic process of interest aggregation and competition require revision given the multiple factors that shape preferences in general and in the interdependent policy-making of the European Union in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the German parliament, the Bundestag, floor time is a scarce resource and is allocated to MPs by leaders of their respective parliamentary party groups. Previous research indicates that highly salient plenary debates tend to be dominated by party leaders and other loyal frontbenchers. Plenary speeches can therefore offer only limited insights into party unity. Any MP can give a so-called 'explanation of vote' (EoVs) to justify their voting decision and/or express their point of view. These written statements provide a more accurate depiction of the range of viewpoints present within legislative parties. In order to assess the effect of party control on observed party unity and parliamentary contestation, discourse network analysis has been employed in this study to compare legislative speech with EoVs in debates on the Greek crisis between 2010 and 2015. Discourse network analysis combines content analysis with an actor-centred approach, and this is the first time this method has been used to study party control and (dis)unity. Bundestag debates on the Greek crisis present an interesting case study, as the issue became increasingly controversial over time, both in the public and the legislature. While this became evident in declining voting unity and individual-level mobilisation through EoVs, the extent to which gatekeeping impedes contestation on the plenary floor needs to be assessed. In terms of representation, it is important that European Union issues not only make it to the plenary agenda but that these debates also reflect the different viewpoints of MPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The break with austerity policies in Portugal, carried out after 2015 by a Socialist government supported in parliament by parties on its left, famously named the "contraption", has gained widespread attention throughout Europe and beyond. This is primarily because the "reversal" of austerity has been successful, restoring social rights and living standards while maintaining the state's financial equilibrium. The emergence of this innovative political solution cannot be understood without reference to the history of the Portuguese welfare state and the debates surrounding its future. For this reason, this article will cover how the Portuguese social model took shape after the democratic turn in 1974, the political and social consensus that underpins it and the political forces that vie for its transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study looks to analyse to what extent the neorealism versus neoliberalism debate contributes to understanding the complexity of the European Union's institutionalization, focusing on the impacts of the 2008 financial crisis and the asymmetries between Germany and Greece. How far can Greece be considered guilty for its situation and how far is Germany involved both in the cause and in the resolution of this crisis? To answer these questions, a brief analysis of the European Union's formation and of both countries' macroeconomic indicators and competitiveness is presented. The article also discusses the increasing institutionalization of the International System and the complex interdependence created within the European Union. It argues that increased European cooperation has deep-lying neorealist motivations and that the world financial regime's pandemic dynamics makes evident the asymmetrical interdependence between Germany and Greece. Economic disparities between the two nations are determinant factors in their respective behaviours prior to the 2008 crisis.

The Euro crisis has revealed severe conflicts between EU member states and challenged a shared European identity. This article investigates how the crisis was reflected in identity constructions in media discourses in EU key countries. European identity construction is conceptualized as framing of the EU in favour or against belonging to the EU and togetherness with other members. Conducting a systematic content analysis of two weekly newspapers and magazines in Germany, France and the UK, we compare identity constructions between 2011 and 2014. Findings show that while support of belonging to the EU is low in general, the countries differ remarkably in terms of their sense of togetherness. This particularly applies to strong or weak political integration, market regulation or market freedom and financial stability or impulses for economic growth. The positions reflect long-term political conflicts between the countries but are also flexible enough to adapt to the particular event context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although European integration has become an increasingly salient and controversial topic in domestic politics, the consequences of this politicisation of the European Union for the integration process have not received adequate scholarly attention. To fill this lacuna, this article devises five hypotheses on the effects of politicisation for the integration process, which are subsequently tested against the evidence of the Euro and Schengen crises. Both crises had comparable origins, but the Euro crisis caused substantial deepening of integration, while the Schengen crisis has not engendered any meaningful reforming steps. The empirical analysis finds that politicisation assumed different forms across the two crises, which is shown to be one causal factor that explains the variation in crises outcomes. The article thereby contributes to a multifaceted understanding of the politicisation of international institutions, EU integration theory and the dynamics of the Euro and Refugee crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper1 scrutinizes the transformation of the European economic governance. This is a framework conceived by European Union decision-makers to establish institutions and processes - coordination and harmonisation of economic policies - in order to achieve economic and social development for the European Union and its citizens. Prior to the global financial crisis, the European economic governance was incomplete, poorly coordinated and in certain macroeconomic areas insufficient. The international financial crisis and the "Euro crisis" compelled a much deeper and more comprehensive governance structure from the decision-makers of the European Union. Despite the rapid emergence of Community-level crisis management mechanisms, ad hoc responses and processes prevailed till the turning point of the "Euro crisis" in 2012. Since then, the transformation the European economic governance continued in a heavily institutionalized and coordinated form, providing a long-term vision for the European Union and the Eurozone. European economic governance has been substantially expanded, institutional arrangements cover fiscal policy, monetary policy, the supervision of the financial system, policies related to structural and competitiveness issues. Moreover, comprehensive and coordinated reform strategies were launched, based on the European Commission's priorities. In this paper, we carry out a simple analysis to detect whether the new European economic governance has corrected the precrisis country-specific risks and institutional flaws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) response to the euro crisis brought new relevance to the debate on socialization through European institutions. While previous studies differ in their support for EU socialization, many have argued that the euro crisis revealed a far-reaching convergence of views among Europe's leaders. Theoretically, the European Central Bank (ECB) in particular is expected to have the power to socialize its governors into a common worldview. The present article questions this proposition. Using the technique of cognitive mapping to provide an in-depth analysis of the views of five members of the ECB Governing Board, we find that even for ECB governors national culture generally trumps EU socialization. Only for ECB President Trichet significant evidence of EU socialization is found. The study also points to some new scope-conditions for socialization that may further our understanding of how European institutions may foster the sustainable socialization of views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this contribution is to account for the different political reform trajectories resulting from two of the most recent governance challenges faced by the European Union (EU), the so-called euro and refugee crises. While the euro crisis triggered various EU-level reforms, the refugee crisis has produced calls for policy and institutional reforms, most of which have - to date - not been adopted or implemented. We employ a liberal intergovernmentalist framework and show that differences in member states’ preferences in the two crises ensue from different exposures to negative externalities. Moreover, we attribute differences in EU member states’ willingness to engage in political reforms to variation in preference constellations among member states, producing different situation structures and bargaining dynamics. While the EU’s response to the euro crisis reflects a situation structure, which highlights both redistributive conflict and a demand for joint action, the response to the refugee crisis resembles a ‘Rambo’ game situation: the states least affected by migratory pressure were satisfied with the institutional status quo, and were thus able to leave the more affected states aggrieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How have European Union institutional actors sought to build, defend or undermine the legitimacy of crisis management during the euro crisis? Scholars have tended to investigate the euro crisis from either a pragmatic and prescriptive perspective - asking which reforms are necessary to build legitimacy in the governance structure of the Eurozone - or an analytical perspective focused on the power wielding of actors useful for understanding what actors have done and why they have been influential or not. The paper argues that rather than bifurcating the issues of legitimacy and power politics, much may be gained by investigating the relationship between legitimacy and power. Specifically, the paper employs the concept of ideational power to analyze the strategies through which actors have sought to defend their claims to three constitutive dimensions of legitimacy - input, output and throughput legitimacy - and proposes a matrix of nine pathways to legitimation that played into processes of legitimacy battles in the Eurozone crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that the emergence of the federal power to tax is the result of a sovereign debt crisis at the state level. I analyse the fiscal history of the early United States (US) to demonstrate how the institutional flaws of the Articles of Confederation, mainly the central budget based on contributions from the states, so-called ‘requisitions’, led to a sovereign debt crisis on the state level, which triggered taxpayers’ revolts in 1786/1787. This social unrest, in turn, was perceived by the political élite as an endogenous threat to the union and paved the way for the fiscalization of the federal government, i.e., the creation of a fiscal union with the federal power to tax based firmly in the Constitution of 1789. This analysis concludes with four insights for the European Union (EU). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Demarcated by growing austerity, economic uncertainty and EU-exits, the past decade witnessed monumental shifts across the political and economic landscapes of Europe. Citizenship is a stabilising force in this era of crisis, particularly for intra-EU migrants. In this contribution, I examine how the Euro crisis impacted citizenship acquisition among these migrants. Building upon the model proposed by John Graeber's article [2016. 'Citizenship in the shadow of the Euro crisis: explaining changing patterns in naturalisation among intra-EU migrants.' Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42 (10): 1670-1692], I discuss the relative importance of citizenship in times of crisis from global and regional perspectives. I argue Graeber's theory presents a strong model for citizenship acquisitions during the crisis, yet leaves the core dyadic structure and several inconsistent findings unexamined. I replicate these models and introduce a dyadic model using bilateral data from 21 receiving and 23 sending states in Europe between 2007 and 2013. Contrary to Graeber's theory, I find citizenship acquisitions among intra-EU migrants primarily coincide with increased in-migration, rather than influences of the Euro crisis. I conclude that while economic sending and receiving contexts matter, the Euro crisis did not appear to restructure intra-EU migrant citizenship incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The object of the analysis presented in the article is the crisis that has been taking place in the euro area member states. The author specifies the factors that have enabled particular countries to overcome the crisis and concludes that the country which has managed to cope with the crisis to the largest extent is Ireland. However, maintenance of the changes introduced in response to the crisis and continuance of reforms of the euro area are necessary to ascertain a further success of the actions taken so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many European countries, populist right-wing parties have been most noticeable representatives of Euroscepticism. In Finland, the Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset) has been a constant promoter of organisational Euroscepticism through its leader, Timo Soini. The party broke through in Finland's 'big bang elections' of 2011, when the most debated issue was the European economic crisis, which was dominated by Eurosceptic Soini. Research concerning the relationship between the media, populism and Euroscepticism usually focus on national or European Parliament elections. This study analyses the media portrayal of the Eurosceptic Finns Party during times other than elections, focusing on the Finland's overall Euro crisis press coverage in 2010-2012. The analysis shows that the populist Finns Party has been a minor player in that coverage, which was dominated by the Euro positive political and economic elites. Differences between newspapers indicate that journalistic routines and political context direct media coverage toward particular framings, even when the media proclaims itself politically independent and neutral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the spatial differentiation of statehood in the process of European integration, looking at its consequences for the reorganization of political rule. First, we elaborate our theoretical foundations resting in materialist theories of the state. It is argued that hitherto analytical approaches have hardly been able to systematically integrate the societal generation of space. This shortcoming is addressed by drawing on theories of space discussed in radical geography. Second, we trace the spatial transformation of statehood in the EU. Our assertion is that the latter is characterized by the emergence of a multi-scalar ensemble of state apparatuses. Finally, we discuss the implications of this transformation for the reproduction of domination. We assume that the multi-scalar form of statehood offers a significant basis for the emergence of authoritarian forms of politics in the EU. At the same time, social conflicts over the political design of the EU are intensifying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The French presidential elections of 2012 brought a new political approach concerning the candidates speech, because Europe became one of the main electoral themes within a national election. In full European economic crisis, the French people seem more than ever interested about the future of European construction, and in this context, the presidential candidates had to tackle this topic of interest in their election campaign. Analyzing the speeches of the first three candidates among the French voters’ preferences, it can be concluded that the future of France in the European construction, as well as the very future of the United Europe are influenced by the results of this year’s presidential elections.

This paper analyzes how the apparently merely technical introduction of reversed qualified majority voting for the excessive deficit procedure included in the Six Pack and the Fiscal Compact shifts not only the institutional balance between the European Commission and the Member States but also the relationship between liberalization and social regulation in the EU. In bringing together institutional analysis and a political economy perspective, the paper shows how the strengthening of the Commission's discretionary decision-making authority in a context of intergovernmental power imbalances between debtor and creditor states extends the asymmetry between market-making and market-correction to the area of political decision-making. In consequence, economic and social policies are subordinated to the primacy of austerity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze various Eurobond proposals and show that they have different effects on moral hazard, interest rates, international transfer payments and the necessity for European fiscal centralization. On closer inspection, these consequences are more diverse than the discussion on Eurobonds so far suggests. For instance, Eurobonds might increase rather than decrease marginal interest rates in weaker countries. Some proposals lead to international transfer payments while others do not. Some require changes to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, others require changes to national constitutions, and others yet require both. Some proposals, while not necessitating such legal change, may still have mutual advantages for the issuing states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Euro crisis has transformed the European political and economic landscape. Amidst lingering political uncertainties, austerity, high unemployment, and diminished levels of trust in the European project, how has the Euro crisis affected the institution of citizenship within the European Union? While the development of EU citizenship and the number of rights and freedoms attached to it since the 1990s has progressively reduced the incentive of intra-EU migrants to acquire citizenship in other member states, I argue that the Euro crisis and its political and economic consequences have reinvigorated the perceived value of national citizenship. In its wake, many intra-EU migrants, and especially those from the most crisis-stricken countries, may have a renewed incentive naturalise in other member states. Using data collected for 14 Western European countries from 2000 to 2013, I demonstrate how a growing lack of trust in political institutions and economic hardship since the Euro crisis has inspired surprising new naturalisation trends across Europe. Rather than perpetuate a further decline of national citizenship in Europe, the Euro crisis appears to have rendered national citizenship once again politically consequential. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article builds on the analysis of institutional change in the European Union as projected by two closely related approaches: deliberative and new intergovernmentalism. Consensus and deliberation play a pivotal role within these perspectives. The two concepts are seen as key for understanding institutional change within the European Council and Council environment. Euro crisis decision-making, which by several authors is seen as evidence of either hard intergovernmental bargaining or as a transformation of consensus politics into domination, thus may undermine a core assumption of the new intergovernmentalism. Even though persisting asymmetries between creditor and debtor countries and dominance on part of one or a small number of powerful member states are understood as a threat to consensus politics, the euro crisis is not seen to have fundamentally changed the overall role of consensus and deliberation as a defining feature of the post-Maastricht era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A crisis can reveal characteristics of a political order which in normal times remain invisible. Two such moments of clarification hit European Union (EU) countries in quick succession. The euro crisis tested the resolve of leaders and peoples to save the single currency. The geopolitical standoff around Ukraine necessitated a joint response to a show of force. In both cases we saw a 'return of politics'. Geopolitical interests trumped economic ones; a need for government (and not just governance) made itself felt; European politics became more salient and intertwined with domestic politics. In the turmoil, notwithstanding calls for a big leap toward greater unity, the European Union also showed its dynamic in-between nature. The public perceives this politicisation perfectly, hence both its disenchantment and the calls for more democracy. EU integration, after 'permissive consensus' and 'constraining dissensus', could be moving to the era of binding dissensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The euro crisis has called into question the constitutional compromises formalized in and by the Lisbon Treaty. The compromise between different (supranational and intergovernmental) interests, the compromise between member states engaged in building the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and those allowed to opt out of it and the compromise, within the EMU, between a centralized approach to monetary policy and decentralized economic policy. Unions of states, as the European Union (EU) is interpreted to be, are necessarily structured on interstate compromises, because they derive from the aggregation of states with different demographies/capabilities and national identities. However, in the EU, contrary to the other unions of states (as the United States and Switzerland), the aggregation has not been supported by an agreed constitutional framework from which to derive procedures and discourse for solving disputes and constituting new interstate compromises. This is why the wrecking of those compromises by the euro crisis has led the EU to a constitutional conundrum. From the analytical perspective used in the article, Treaty reform seems to be the necessary, although contrasted, strategy for escaping from the conundrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The euro crisis and a new debate about immigration in Europe have undermined support for the EU while the unsolved Greek debt problems as well as the ECB's quantitative easing policy have raised new crucial policy issues. It is necessary to identify the key issues of Eurozone stabilization and to clarify the economic benefits from monetary integration. As regards the economic welfare analysis of the euro, the new model presented shows the benefits of the euro's reserve currency position, namely in the framework of a neoclassical growth model with seigniorage based on international reserve holdings. Discounted benefits are about 10,000 € per capita in a stable Euro area. Thus the benefits are bigger than often considered, at the same time one may raise the question of whether the existing institutional setting of the Eurozone is sufficient for achieving long-term stability and prosperity. As regards the envisaged third rescue package for Greece it is emphasized that a haircut of public creditors along with adoption of a Greek capital levy plus privatization efforts are required to achieve debt sustainability and growth. The traditional interpretation of subsidiarity in the EU is found to be misleading and the vertical division of politics is destabilizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Euro crisis reforms as major example of interstitial institutional change in the EU - Forms of institutional change : unusual sources of law, new tasks for the EU institutions, new organs, competence creep, institutional hybrids, and more differentiated integration - Question whether some or all of this amounts to a ‘constitutional mutation’ of the EU legal order - Reasons to doubt whether the constitutional fundamentals have changed - Alternative thesis: increased institutional variation, deepening the differences between EMU law and the rest of EU law. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Euro crisis, which has had deep economic, social and political implications for the European Union (EU), has revived the debates on the future model of European integration. In this respect, the establishment of a European political union has been advocated as a way of restoring shattered confidence in the EU. Whereas these debates recall neofunctionalist/supranationalist approaches to European political integration, the enduring crucial role of national preferences in the integration process keep intergovernmentalist arguments on the agenda as well. Furthermore, the increasing divergences within the EU endanger the unity and cohesion required by a political union, bringing forward arguments in favour of differentiated integration as an alternative model for post-crisis Europe. This paper aims to analyse the implications of the crisis for the EU on theoretical grounds, elaborating on the debates over a future model of integration for post-crisis Europe. It is mainly argued that these debates reveal the persisting complexity of reconciliation on the possibilities and means of building a European political union and stimulate conventional controversies rather than clarifying the finality politique of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the role of labour and trade unions in the repeated shifts of crisis phenomena over the past years. It addresses the question why, confronted with the very profoundness of the crisis, they have failed to develop politically relevant and socially progressive strategies so far. The presented argument not only refers to structural power relations but in particular to the political struggles and processes in which more far-reaching ambitions have been knocked into shape. In that context, the focus is above all on economic stimulus packages, financial market regulation, and current budget consolidation. The paper will be organised as follows: It will start with some general problems of trade unions in generating sufficient power and organisational capacities against the background of the unfolding crisis within the European Union (EU). The next section empirically highlights these developments by discussing the cases of Germany, France, and Spain. The paper then concludes highlighting common challenges and chances, but also the difficulties to form new progressive European alliances.

According to some observers, the Euro crisis could have provoked a broad politicisation of European issues and the emergence of a cross-border European public discourse, paving the way for a democratic deepening of the European Union. This article examines whether there has been such a European public discourse on the Euro crisis. Based on the academic literature and drawing on cleavage theory, I define the following indicators of a European public discourse: first, the same issues have to be discussed at the same time in various EU member states; and second, the interpretations of and opinions on these issues should reflect a transnational ideological cleavage that cuts across national borders instead of an international cleavage between countries. A systematic content analysis of editorials in centre-left and centre-right quality newspapers in Germany (Eurozone core) and Spain (Eurozone periphery) shows that these countries’ public discourses on the Euro crisis have not met these requirements for a European public discourse. I found significant country differences between Germany and Spain, while a cross-cutting transnational cleavage between the centre-left and centre-right did not play a significant role. These results suggest that there has not been a European public discourse on the Euro crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Europe’s woes mark a new chapter in the longstanding theory/history nexus in European studies. The euro crisis has brought integration theory back onto the scholarly agenda and highlighted the value of neo-functionalism – and more precisely its key ‘spillover’ mechanism – as a framework for interpreting current politico-institutional dynamics in the European Union. We are, however, at a particular point of the neo-functionalist narration, in which the transition from low to high political integration has opened a phase of political fluidity that makes ideas and political leadership crucial in determining the future course of integration. In this phase, the positive scheme of neo-functionalism and the normative one of federalism come together, bringing the intellectual trajectory begun after WWII to full circle. Whether this new encounter will result in further integration depends primarily on the content of new federalist ideas, the emergence of an effective European leadership, and the presence of a favourable international environment. For all three factors, the record so far has been mixed at best. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]