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

Schmidt, Vivien A.

doi:10.1080/01402382.2016.1186389

Cited by 146 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 47 publications

(41 reference statements)

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“…However, this rules-based understanding of the Commission's assessments is difficult to sustain in practice (Schmidt 2016b). This is evident in the set-up of the MIP where the 'alert thresholds' on the headline indicators do not automatically trigger a policy response but only serve a signalling function, which invites a closer and more holistic review of the relevant economic conditions and the threat they pose for other European economies.…”

Section: Sidelining the European Parliament: The Suspension Of Supranmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is also on purpose that some discretion is left, within the agreed rules, for the Commission and the Council to assess the soundness of public finances in the light of country-specific circumstances, in order to recommend the best course of action based on the latest developments and information. (European Commission 2015a: 4) Vivien Schmidt (2016b) aptly characterizes this shifting position of the Commission as involving a reinterpretation of the rules 'by stealth'.…”

Section: Sidelining the European Parliament: The Suspension Of Supranmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Dawson 2015;Schmidt 2015: 99). In practice, the two institutions aim to play down the 'disjunction between discourse and action' (Schmidt 2016b(Schmidt : 1033. The Commission threads cautiously in issuing its recommendations and seeks to anticipate as much as possible the will of the (majority of the) member states.…”

Section: Sidelining the European Parliament: The Suspension Of Supranmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Parliamentary accountability in multilevel governance: what role for parliaments in post-crisis EU economic governance?

Crum

2017

Journal of European Public Policy

134

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How has the new structure of European Union (EU) economic governance affected the ability of parliaments (national and European) to scrutinize and control economic policy? Departing from the premise that executive power needs to be matched by appropriate parliamentary control, this contribution argues that parliamentary powers have been compromised in EU economic governance. Although budgetary powers remain formally at the national level, governments' decisions have become constrained and national parliaments find themselves on the losing side of a reinforced two-level game. This loss in parliamentary powers is not compensated at the European level, as at that level political authority is effectively left suspended between the national governments, who are unaccountable as a collective, and the European Commission, which lacks a political mandate of its own. Against this background, a final section identifies guidelines for organizing parliamentary accountability in settings, like EU economic governance, in which executive power has come to be shared across levels.

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Section: Sidelining the European Parliament: The Suspension Of Supranmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Sidelining the European Parliament: The Suspension Of Supranmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Sidelining the European Parliament: The Suspension Of Supranmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Parliamentary accountability in multilevel governance: what role for parliaments in post-crisis EU economic governance?

Crum

2017

Journal of European Public Policy

134

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Central to this was a coordinated internal devaluation, led by unions and employers in the manufacturing sector, and which was specifically aimed at reducing unit labor costs, whilst retaining core employment (Hassel 2014). This beggar-thy-neighbor strategy of wage repression led to rising inequalities and contributed to the current account surplus of Germany, feeding imbalances within the Eurozone, and broadly informs the EU's labour market response to crisis today (see Blyth 2013;Hall 2012;Streeck 2014;Storm 2014;Regan 2015;Nölke 2016;Stockhammer 2016;Schmidt 2016 for a critique).…”

Section: The Political Economy Of An Fdi-led Growth Model In Europementioning

confidence: 99%

Celtic Phoenix or Leprechaun Economics? The Politics of an FDI-led Growth Model in Europe

Regan

Brazys

2017

New Political Economy

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In this paper we argue that Ireland's post-crisis economic recovery in Europe was driven by foreign direct investment (FDI) from Silicon Valley, and whilst this growth model was made possible by Ireland's low corporate tax rates, it was also a result of these firms using Ireland to directly access the European labour market. We evidence this contention via sectoral and geographic analyses while simultaneously showing that Irish fiscal policies have not redistributed gains from the recovery to the broader population. As a result, the economic recovery has been most actively felt by those in the FDI sectors, including foreign-national workers from the EU and beyond. We suggest that this experience indicates that Ireland's FDI-led model of economic development has created clear winners and losers, with significant distributional implications. The FDI growth regime been made possible by inward migration and European integration, but given the unequal distribution of the economic benefits that this generates, it is unlikely to be politically, or electorally, sustainable.

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“…Further evidence for Commission assertiveness can be found in its exercise of coordination functions. Schmidt (2016) shows how the Commission slowly changed the direction of policy coordination in the Europe 2020 strategy from strictly economic -i.e., subordinating every policy field to fiscal consolidation -to a broader, increasingly social agenda. More broadly, the Commission has used the reformed architecture of the European Semester to bolster the effect of country-specific recommendations, which are in principle not binding, by symbolically coupling them with its monitoring results in macroeconomic surveillance.…”

Section: Legislative Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Commission: boxed in and constrained, but still an engine of integration

Becker¹,

Bauer²,

Connolly³

et al. 2016

West European Politics

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

Cited by 146 publications

References 47 publications

Parliamentary accountability in multilevel governance: what role for parliaments in post-crisis EU economic governance?

Parliamentary accountability in multilevel governance: what role for parliaments in post-crisis EU economic governance?

Celtic Phoenix or Leprechaun Economics? The Politics of an FDI-led Growth Model in Europe

The Commission: boxed in and constrained, but still an engine of integration

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