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The Coordination of Macroeconomic Policies in the Aftermath of the Eurozone Crisis: Shaping Policies Through Executive Politics

par Coman, Ramona
Editeur scientifique De Waele, Jean-Michel ;Ponjaert, Frederik ;Weyembergh, Anne ;Grevi, Giovanni
Référence Rethinking the European Union and its Global Role from the 20th to the 21st Century, Liber Amicorum Mario Telo, Editions de l'Université, page (183-200)
Publication Publié, 2019-05-01

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Résumé :

This chapter examines this process of coordination to show how EU institutions adopt the set of Country Specific Recommendations (CSRs) that are issued annually by the Commission, endorsed by the European Council and approved by the Council in the framework of the European Semester. Drawing on interviews, it demonstrates that the European Semester is a process of coordination where constrains are deliberated and negotiated at three intertwined levels: in expert committees, where national experts exchange views and policy ideas with the Commission, in bilateral meetings between Member States and the Commission where Member States express their political will or unwillingness to implement reforms and seek to persuade the Commission to take into account their preferences and to consider their domestic situation, and, ultimately, in the Council, when the vote is used as a last resort mechanism to decide on issues unsolved by national experts. As the Council has to ‘comply or explain’ its position, at each stage Member States build coalitions to vote against the Commission’s proposals. Thus, the three levels of coordination are intertwined. At each stage, political and administrative actors seek to shape the degree of constraint by convincing their peers and the Commission about the validity of their claims in an attempt to avoid unpopular recommendations being implemented at the domestic level. The chapter concludes that although the coordination of policies has been improved in terms of process over time and has gained the support of all the actors involved (independently on their views on the policies at stake), it still lacks politicization, transparency and publicity, as most of these debates which are of great importance for European citizens take place behind closed doors, through negotiations and deliberations between representatives of the Commission, national experts and Member States’ representatives in the Council. The European Semester is an illustration of coordination of policies through executive politics.