The evolving architecture of economic policy coordination in the European Union [Articol]

Abstract

This paper analyses the evolution of economic policy coordination in the European Union (EU), tracing its development from the rules-based framework of the Maastricht Treaty to the crisis-driven innovations of the 21st century. It argues that the EU’s economic governance architecture is not the product of a grand design but rather a pathdependent process of institutional adaptation in response to successive crises. The paper first examines the theoretical underpinnings of policy coordination in a monetary union, highlighting the challenges posed by the Eurozone’s status as a non-optimal currency area. It then charts the history of the coordination framework, beginning with the original Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), whose rigidities and enforcement weaknesses were starkly exposed by the sovereign debt crisis. The analysis proceeds to dissect the complex tapestry of post-crisis governance reforms-including the Six-Pack, Two-Pack, Fiscal Compact, and the European Semester—which significantly deepened surveillance but also increased complexity and raised questions of democratic legitimacy. Finally, the paper assesses the paradigm shift represented by the Next Generation EU (NGEU) recovery instrument, a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. NGEU introduced common debt issuance and investment-focused conditionality, moving away from the austerity-driven logic of the previous crisis. The paper concludes that while the EU’s coordination framework has become more resilient, it remains fraught with fundamental tensions between rules and discretion, supranationalism and intergovernmentalism, and solidarity and responsibility. Resolving these tensions is the central challenge for the future of the Economic and Monetary Union.