Conflict among member states and the influence of the Commission in EMU politics

ABSTRACT

The recent reforms of the euro zone are best explained in three steps: (a) member states’ preferences were determined by national governments on the basis of their economic interests, which are interpreted through a distinct set of ideas, (b) the diverging preferences among member states translated into a straightforward intergovernmental bargaining setting, and (c) the European Commission maintained a leading role throughout the process of negotiating policy outcomes. On the interstate bargaining level, all major reform proposals were negotiated between two opposing groups of member states: one advocating for fiscal discipline and the other asking for more burden sharing and transfers. In this intergovernmental bargaining setting, the Commission was influential in policy negotiations and in turning the political compromises into reform outcomes. Taken together, the politics of euro zone reform were shaped by the conflict among two opposing coalitions of member states and the influential role of the Commission.

KEYWORDS:

• Economic and Monetary Union
• EMU
• euro zone
• euro zone crisis
• European Commission

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Uwe Puetter and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This article has been written as part of the project EMU Choices funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 649532 (see www.EMUchoices.eu).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, Finland, Malta, Netherlands, Slovakia and Slovenia opposed a formal commitment for a redemption fund, while Denmark, Spain, France, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Portugal, Romania and Sweden supported such a proposal.

Additional information

Funding

This article has been written as part of the project EMU Choices funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 649532 (see www.EMUchoices.eu); H2020 Societal Challenges.

Notes on contributors

Zdenek Kudrna

Zdenek Kudrna is Research Fellow at the Centre of European Union Studies of the University of Salzburg, Austria.

Fabio Wasserfallen

Fabio Wasserfallen is Professor of European Politics and Co-Director of the Institute of Political Science at the University of Bern, Switzerland.