2 - Postcrisis Economic Policy Coordination in the Eurozone: A Conceptual Appraisal from the Governance Perspective

Summary

Chapter 2 makes sense of the many reforms passed in the field of economic and fiscal policy over the past decade by conceptualizing them from a governance perspective. Its focus is on the institutional dynamics under the economic pillar and integration techniques mobilized by policy actors. It recalls the centrality of "policy coordination" and finds that in the precrisis era economic coordination was rather loose, horizontal and state-centered, primarily geared towards the pursuit of collective policy goals. It then shows that the Eurocrisis and the COVID-19 crisis have brought the EU and its Member States to largely transcend and reshape this precrisis coordination pattern, leading to its evolution towards a new form of coordination and type of EU intervention in the field of economic policy. This pattern presents the following features. It is more centralized and vertical; no longer confines the Union to a processual role but enables it to meaningfully weigh in on the substance of the policies being coordinated; and is increasingly harmonizing, moving away from the experimentalist philosophy, as it primarily aims at ordering national policies in the economic and social field along the lines of a uniform model.