Reinterpreting the rules ‘by stealth’ in times of crisis: a discursive institutionalist analysis of the European Central Bank and the European Commission

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which EU actors have engaged in incremental changes to the eurozone rules ‘by stealth’ ‒ that is, by reinterpreting the rules and recalibrating the numbers without admitting it in their public discourse. Using the methodological framework of discursive institutionalism to focus on agents’ ideas and discursive interactions in institutional context, the article links EU actors’ reinterpretation of rules to their efforts to ensure greater legitimacy in terms of policy performance and governance processes as well as citizen politics. Using the normative theoretical framework of EU democratic systems theory, it analyses EU actors’ considerations of legitimacy not only in terms of their policies’ ‘output’ performance and citizens’ political ‘input’ but also the ‘throughput’ quality of their governance processes. The article illustrates this by elaborating on the different pathways to legitimation of the European Central Bank and the European Commission.

Keywords:

• European Central Bank
• European Commission
• discursive institutionalism
• eurozone crisis
• throughput legitimacy
• output legitimacy
• input legitimacy

Notes

1. Many of the ideas discussed herein were developed during a part-time Research Fellowship (June 2014–June 2015) awarded by European Commission, Directorate General of Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN) to consult and produce a paper on ‘Political Economy of EMU: Rebuilding Trust and Support for Economic Integration’. For the report, see DG ECFIN Economic Discussion Papers 15 (September 2015): http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/eedp/dp015_en.htm.

2. See e.g. Rehn’s speech at the European American Press Club, Paris, 1 October 2013; Debate in the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 13 June 2012; Speech at the European Economic and Social Committee public hearing/Brussels, 19 February 2013.

3. See e.g. Rehn’s speech on the adoption by the Italian government of extraordinary fiscal and economic measures on 4 December 2011; at the Conference on the European Semester/Warsaw, 8 March 2013; at the European American Press Club, Paris, 1 October 2013; and his Press Conference in Strasbourg, 14 February 2012.

4. Speech at the EPC Policy Breakfast in Brussels, 11 January 2013.