An in-depth study of the Eurozone's economic governance and its constitutional foundations.

This book is for people interested in one of three themes: accountability, the European Union and economic governance (e.g. budgets, central banks and financial institutions). It combines leading research in law and political science.

Positioned parties: evidence from the crisp-set QCA analysis -- Parties with 'double' positioning and the 'salient' ones -- Interpretation of the results -- Conclusions -- 7 Conclusions -- Approval of anti-crisis measures -- Control and representative functions -- Talking shop or deliberative body? -- Future challenge: national parliaments within the European semester -- References -- Index

This book investigates to what extent and how the European Semester impacts on national employment policy in four EU member states of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region. Using an original theoretical and methodological framework, and based on empirical evidence from extensive interviews with experts in the field, this book examines the relation between EU preferences, exemplified by the yearly list of country-specific recommendations, and national policy responses to EU suggestions, tracing the extent to which policy change can be attributed to the influence of the European Semester. It extracts three potential mechanisms of European Semester influence on policy change: External pressure, mutual learning and creative appropriation and identifies key contributing and inhibiting factors. The book provides several policy recommendations regarding the organisation and workings of the European Semester process. This text will be of key interest to students, academics and practitioners in European and EU politics, EU socio-economic governance, EU social policy, European integration, soft Europeanization and the Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe.

Within the framework of the new European economic governance, neoliberal views on wages have further increased in prominence and have steered various reforms of collective bargaining rules and practices. As the crisis in Europe came to be largely interpreted as a crisis of competitiveness, wages were seen as the core adjustment variable for ‘internal devaluation’, the claim being that competitiveness could be restored through a reduction of labour costs. This book proposes an alternative view according to which wage developments need to be strengthened through a Europe-wide coordinated reconstruction of collective bargaining as a precondition for more sustainable and more inclusive growth in Europe. It contains major research findings from the CAWIE2 – Collectively Agreed Wages in Europe – project, conducted in 2014–2015 for the purpose of discussing and debating the currently dominant policy perspectives on collectively-bargained wage systems under the new European economic governance.

The euro area sovereign debt crisis has been the greatest threat to the euro since its inception, but the consequences of the crisis go well beyond the realm of macroeconomics: the crisis has cast doubt on the viability of a mechanism of integration such as the one envisaged in Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), and on the future of the European Union as a political project in the face of citizens' growing disaffection. The various responses to the crisis have not only altered the principles underlying EMU; they have also had a profound impact on the constitutional orders of the EU and its Member States. This book focuses on the euro area crisis and its aftermath from a constitutional perspective. It provides a critical analysis of the workings and evolution of Economic and Monetary Union, the changes brought by the crisis and their broader effects, and the constitutional obstacles to integration in this area. Looking forward, it tackles the uncertain future of economic and fiscal integration and the challenges posed. This is a compelling and incisive account of some of the most significant developments and dilemmas facing the European Union since its creation.

Routledge Handbook of the Economics of European Integration provides readers with a brief but comprehensive overview of topics related to the process of European integration in the post-World War II period. Its short chapters reflect the most up-to-date and concise research, written by a collective of experts on their own subjects. The aim of this book is twofold. Firstly, the text illustrates the broad and diverse range of issues associated with European integration, and lastly, the key approaches and findings are summarised. Since institutional integration in Europe is an ongoing process, with possibly frequent and sometimes rapid changes, the chapters are intended to focus on the key features of the economic analyses of these topics. A wide and diverse set of economic issues is of direct relevance for European integration. These topics cover various fields, ranging from the history of the European Economic and Monetary Union, EU Trade Policy and the stability of international trade, single market issues over fiscal, monetary and other policies, the crisis that faces the Euro area, and institutions such as EU Council of Ministers. Not surprisingly, many of these issues have also been analysed from a European perspective. This handbook is designed to provide students, researchers, the public and policy makers with ready and accessible knowledge of issues related to European integration and will provide the definitive overview of research in the area.

This book is a follow-up to the ETUI 2012 volume 'The triumph of failed ideas'. The focus of the book is the weight attributed to the different economic and social development paths in ten individual EU countries, and their interaction with the austerity regime established at EU level which in fact is deepening the crisis rather than paving ways out of it. The most dangerous implication of this policy approach is, according to this study, that it is driving countries apart - misleadingly in the name of 'Europe', hence the title of the book 'divisive integration'. The main message of the book is that a gradual recovery is possible only if there is a change of course in individual countries that then triggers reactions in the policies of other countries and perturbations at the EU level. However, these changes in individual countries is no longer feasible without a green light or at least toleration from the level of the European institutions.

This title assesses EU law and policy using a novel and alternative framework based on the notion of humaneness.

Several years after the first Greek bailout, the integration project of the European Union faces an interlocking set of political, economic, legal and social challenges that go to the very core of its existence. Austerity is the order of the day, and citizens in both debtor and creditor states increasingly turn to the political movements of the far left and right, anti-politics and street protests to vent their frustration. This book demonstrates the limits of constitutionalism in the EU. It explores the ‘twin crises’ - the failure of the Constitutional Treaty in 2005 and the more recent Eurozone crisis - to illuminate both the possibilities and pitfalls of the integration project. It argues that European integration overburdened law in an attempt to overcome deep-seated political deficiencies. It further contends that the EU shifted from an unsuccessful attempt at democratisation via politicisation (the Constitutional Treaty), to an unintended politicisation without democratisation (the Eurozone crisis) only a few years later. The book makes the case that this course is unsustainable and threatens the goal of European unity. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars in the fields of EU studies, EU law, democracy studies, constitutional studies and international relations.