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Following bailouts by the Troika (EC, ECB and IMF) due to the 2008 global financial crisis, between 2010 and 2013, new anti‐austerity movements, left‐wing parties and trade unions led large mobilisations against austerity policies in Greece and Portugal, with a deep impact in the political landscape of both countries. Besides the relevance of transnational decisions, these mobilisations mostly addressed national political institutions, whereas the governments that emerged from the protest period showed a clear pro‐European stance. Against this background, using two case studies with primary data on anti‐austerity protests and interactions amongst contentious and institutional actors, this article aims to shed light on a relatively unexplored aspect of Europeanisation in the context of the crisis, focusing on the relation between social movements and institutional politics. Explaining the critical pro‐EU positions that have been adopted in Greece and Portugal, it thereby contributes to the related debates on anti‐austerity social movements and their impact in times of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article analyzes the euro area's banking sector regulatory framework, known as the Banking Union. It shows how distressed banks' noncompliance with supervisory, state aid, or central bank lending policies can trigger the application of resolution or liquidation measures. Further, it provides new evidence on large banks distress episodes in the European Union and the United States, suggesting that recapitalization is a more cost‐effective policy instrument than resolution or liquidation. Finally, it argues that the Banking Union lacks an appropriate recapitalization instrument for borderline distressed banks and that a more nuanced and structured stance on regulatory forbearance is probably warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2011, a series of measures have been adopted by European Union, with the initial purpose to harmonizing of the very specific aspects of substantial law of insolvency, including restructuring, but also regarding the company law. The enforcement of Regulation (EU) 2015/848 on insolvency proceedings aimed solving the conflicts of jurisdiction in cross-border insolvency proceedings and ensuring the recognition of insolvency decisions on the territory of the Union. However, the Regulation did not seek to harmonize the substantial law of insolvency in the Member States. Even though in some Member States, including our country, the Commission's Recommendation was received as a useful proposal to undertake insolvency reforms (adoption of Law 85/2014 regarding the insolvency and insolvency prevention procedures in Romania), it did not succeed in generating uniform changes in all Member States to facilitate the rescue of companies in financial difficulty and to enable entrepreneurs to benefit from a second chance. The Recommendation did not have the expected effects because its partial implementation, even at the level of countries where real reforms have been made regarding the insolvency law. In this context, this study aims at an analysis of insolvency prevention procedures in our country, reported to the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council, on preventive restructuring frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper exploits a panel of 28 European Union (EU) countries between 1995 and 2016 to analyze whether higher debt resulted in lower private investment – the so called debt overhang effect. We deal with the potential endogeneity between private investment and other macroeconomic determinants by applying an instrumental variable approach (GMM). Our results support the debt overhang hypothesis and indicate that this relationship only works through the public debt channel. In our baseline regression, a 10 percentage point increase in public debt reduced private investment by €18.32 billion, given the levels of private investment prevalent in 2016. By contrast, private debt does not appear to be a significant determinant of private investment. These results hold after controlling for a number of factors that might have caused public debt to increase and private investment to decrease. While our analysis focuses on the financial sector channel, we find no evidence that public debt tightens the credit constraints for private firms or worsens the public debt overhang. We also show that government bailouts of the financial sector, which could alleviate financial distress and boost credit provision, do not appear to be effective in mitigating the public debt overhang effect. Finally, we find evidence that the financial openness of a country does alleviate the negative impact of public debt on private investment. This might suggest that attracting foreign capital compensates for a contraction in the domestic pool of financial resources due to higher public debt levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Euro-crisis, the subsequent bailout efforts and 'institution-building' have triggered intense contestation. How these measures have changed the dynamics of integration, but also their democratic implications remain uncertain. This article examines the responses taken by the EU and its member state governments, the financial mechanisms, EFSM, EFSF, and ESM in particular. Their institutional character and how they conform to or diverge from previous institutional development in the EU are assessed. Building upon that, we address their connection with the democratic dilemma of the EU. European integration has long relied on balancing between intergovernmentalism and the supranational 'Community method'. A growing preponderance of intergovernmentalism in the delicate policy area of fiscal and economic governance could be understood as a protection to member state autonomy. However, such developments can exacerbate multiple asymmetries and have problematic implications for democratic legitimacy, not just at EU level, but also for the member states themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses pros and cons of participating in the banking union from the perspective of non-euro countries. Expanding the banking union with home and host countries of European banks is likely to bring overall benefits in terms of more efficient bank resolution. But net benefits of participating seem smaller for countries outside than inside the euro area. At the same time, strong safeguards for non-euro countries suggest that costs of participating are low. Ultimately, the assessment of net benefits depends on the value put on closer cooperation with euro area members in matters related to financial integration and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article engages the analyses of Poulantzas, Anderson, and Ferreira do Aramal to outline the main politico-economic contours of post-Carnation Revolution Portugal. The account that follows examines the effects of accession to the European Economic Community (EEC), European Union (EU) structural funding and liberalization policies, and the euro currency. The article concludes by situating the troika's 2011 "rescue" of the Portuguese state—and the accompanying austerity measures—within the post-1974 process of "Europeanization." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to identify the resilience of measures adopted during bailout programmes, and the conditions under which decisions-makers reverse them. Focusing on Spain and Portugal (2014–2019), we calculated that almost half (46 per cent) of the most important measures adopted during the programmes were reversed in the five years following the bailouts. We also show that left-wing parties reversed more than right wing and that the bulk of structural reforms remained unchanged. Using crisp-set qualitative-comparative analysis (QCA), we find that business interests, veto players' preferences and governments' electoral calculations are determinants of reversals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Italy's far-right premier Meloni, on her second Tunisia visit within a week I (See above), i said she was "satisfied" with the EU offer of "a real partnership to face the migratory crisis and the question of development" in Tunisia. B A new agreement is contingent on slowing the migratory flows. b The European Union ( B EU b ) on June 11th offered Tunisia more than €1bn in aid to boost its crisis-hit economy and reduce the flow of irregular migrants across the Mediterranean Sea. TUNISIA - EU: Aid Boost. [Extracted from the article]

In the spring of 2010 Greece officially turned to the EU for help in order to prevent itself from a sovereign default. However, the Treaty on European Union explicitly prohibits any member state to ask for a so-called bailout (i.e., financial assistance) from the other member states or the EU itself. Thus, overnight the Greek financial crisis became a linguistic one as well: how to communicate the notion of fi nancial assistance without implying one? In light of this conundrum, the paper investigates how leading European and American newspapers have communicated the financial assistance by looking at the rather diverse expressions used for the notion of "bailout" that appeared in select articles published on the pivotal dates of the crisis management process. We hypothesized that as the Greek crisis developed, multiple and alternating frames were used in communicating the news on crisis management through the lexical choices the journalists used. The data justified the hypotheses: while the fi rst phase was dominated by the RELIEF frame, this was eventually superseded by the BAILOUT frame by 2 May, the day the deal was finally struck. At the same time, the BUSINESS TRANSACTION frame never appeared as the most significant conceptualisation, implying that journalists were reluctant to view the deal between the two (eventually, three) parties as the result of a rational horizontal relationship between "buyer" and "seller" or between "debtor" and "creditor". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial bailouts for ailing Eurozone countries face deep and widespread opposition among voters in donor countries, casting major doubts over the political feasibility of further assistance efforts. What is the nature of the opposition and under what conditions can governments obtain broader political support for funding such large-scale, international transfers? This question is addressed by distinguishing theoretically between 'fundamental' and 'contingent' attitudes. Whereas the former entail complete rejection or embrace of a policy, the latter depend on the specific features of the policy and could shift if those features are altered. Combining unique data from an original survey in Germany - the largest donor country - together with an experiment that varies salient policy dimensions, the analysis indicates that less than a quarter of the public exhibits fundamental opposition to the bailouts. Testing a set of theories on contingent attitudes, particular sensitivity is found to the burden-sharing and cost dimensions of the bailouts. The results imply that the choice of specific features of a rescue package has important consequences for building domestic support for international assistance efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EU institutions are deeply involved in the making of European financial assistance conditionality. Nevertheless, mechanisms providing financial assistance to Eurozone States are still regarded as foreign to the EU legal order. This paper assesses financial assistance conditionality as applied by the European Financial Stability Facility and the European Stability Mechanism to Eurozone States from an EU human rights perspective. First, the hybrid nature of European financial assistance is illustrated through a series of institutional and substantive links between the international and the EU legal order. Second, the relative responsibility of European institutions under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is addressed. To what extent are the major European actors bound by the human rights of the Charter when preparing financial assistance conditions? Third, the question is tackled whether Member States implementing financial assistance conditions are bound by the Charter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what conditions do governments choose hard or soft bargaining strategies in intergovernmental negotiations? Applying a bargaining power model in two-level games, I explore the factors that explain Greek strategy in bailout negotiations during the period 2010–2015. Governments with fewer power resources, worse best alternative to negotiated agreement and fewer domestic constraints are more likely to follow a soft bargaining strategy. But the choice of strategy is as much the result of structural features of bargaining power as it is of ideology and the perception of success (or failure) in iterative bargaining rounds. The findings have implications for bargaining power models and European Union bailout negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global financial crisis revealed the weaknesses of the EU integration process, in general, and of the Eurozone, in particular. The EU institutions responded to the crisis in an inadequate way, in the belief that government debt stabilisation had to be pursued before the economy recovers. This strategy was based on economic forecasting errors, exposing member-states to the speculative behaviour of financial markets, leading to the bailout of countries such as Portugal, and undermining the confidence in the single currency, in the European economy and in the European project itself. We analyse here the crisis of the European Union (EU) in light of the bailout of Portugal, and propose an alternative strategy for Portugal and the EU, drawing upon Amartya Sen's capability approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We empirically analysed the costs of bank restructuring measures undertaken in the EU countries during recent global financial crisis under the state aid framework. With a unique dataset from over 80 bank case studies in 2008–2014, we modelled the determinants of bailout costs and ranked the cost of each tool applied. We have found that the most important determinant was level of capital adequacy, while the most cost-consuming tool—liquidation of a bank. Thus, our study provides implications on the selection of state aid tools and sheds a new light on their costs. Overall, we concluded that banks’ higher loss absorption capacity, strengthened supervision over small and medium-sized banks and restrictive approach to diagnose bank's problems may limit the costs of future rescue operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A calendar of events that took place in Europe in July-December 2015 which include humanitarian assistance of the European Union (EU) to Ukraine, rejection of the terms of an international bailout by Greek voters in a referendum, and agreement of the leaders of EU on a third Greek bail out.

The article discusses the persistence of the Greek Syriza party and parliamentary ally Independent Greeks in resisting the Eurozone program of austerity set by European Union creditors for resolving the country's financial crisis and recession. It takes note of the propensity of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and finance minister Yanis Varoufakis to oppose German economic orthodoxy. The cost and duration of paying Grek debt after the bailout is also discussed.

This article identifies and examines the features of protest events in Ireland in the aftermath of the EU-IMF bailout in order to understand why the patterns of protest in Ireland have not mirrored those in the other EU countries that received bail outs. To identify characteristics of Irish protest I used contemporary newspaper articles to compile a database recording objective features of protest events that took place in Ireland between 22 November 2010 and 1 February 2013. Participants from three protest campaigns were then asked to respond to a questionnaire aimed at establishing their motivations for participating in protest. The results of the research show that the largest protest events recorded during the period were in response to the bailout and that the bailout was the most frequently protested issue, challenging the characterization of the Irish as a passive nation dutifully taking its medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks whether the Memoranda of Understanding on specific economic policy conditionality (MoUs), signed between bailed-out member states and the EU, have changed the latter's potential to intrude in the reform of national social and labour market policies and, if so, how. What have been the effects of the measures and reforms taken under the MoUs on national social and labour market policies? The MoUs of Greece and Portugal are analysed with a focus on pension systems and labour market policies. It is argued that the MoUs have been unprecedentedly intrusive in national social and labour market policies. The level of intrusiveness has varied, depending on the difficulty of implementing the MoU reforms, the extent to which the macroeconomic adjustment has been seen to be stalling, and the degree to which a given policy area is directly relevant to the adjustment in question. The effects of the reforms induced by the MoUs have sometimes been intended as moves in the direction of a necessary modernisation. However, the pressing demand to cut public expenditure and substantially improve competitiveness, combined with the increase in demand for social and labour market support due to mounting unemployment rates, have weighed heavily on such attempts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European Union's ‘social constitution’ and bailout measures – Are the bailout measures EU law? – Do the bailout measures create legal obligations? – Legal nature of Memoranda of Understanding – Avenues for challenge – Call for recognition of the EU law nature of bailouts and the costs of such non-recognition [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]