The Economic Governance Reforms in the European Union during the Sovereign Debt Crisis and Current Pandemic: Toward More Supranationalism?
P4-04
Presented by: Christophe Crombez
This paper analyzes and compares the economic governance reforms that the European Union introduced during the sovereign debt crisis and more recently during the ongoing pandemic. It studies whether the institutions and decision-making procedures set up as part of these reforms, and the differences between them, do indeed represent a move away from intergovernmentalism toward more supranationalism, as is often claimed. To that effect this paper introduces spatial models to analyze the decision-making procedures and their effects on policy outcomes and institutions’ powers. The focus is on the preventive arm of the Stability and Growth Pact and the functioning of the European Stability Mechanism, as far as the response to the sovereign debt crisis is concerned, and the Recovery and Resilience Facility, as far as the response to the pandemic is concerned. Our conclusions are more nuanced than a quick comparison of the reforms would suggest.