Why the EU’s constitutional deadlock is hampering EMU reforms, and how this could be resolved

Brake and broker: Franco-German leadership for saving EMU

“…Especially the German government faced strong public opposition and an integration-skeptical parliamentary majority (Daniele & Geys, 2015;Degner & Leuଏen, 2016;Wendler, 2014), but it also did not invest substantial political capital to convince its domestic audience that advancing EMU beyond lowest common denominator solutions would be both in the European and the national interest. We hold that this lack of a 'European spirit' rather than the 'fear of Treaty change', as Griller and Lentsch (2020) argue in this debate section, impeded EMU reforms during the euro zone crisis.…”

“…However, we diagnose a lack of ideational leadership, apparent since the outbreak of the euro zone crisis in 2010. The couple led the Union as a broker in key moments of crisis management, but a lack of joint ideational leadership on the European level only allowed the formulation of lowest common denominator solutions (Griller & Lentsch, 2020;Matthijs & McNamara, 2015). Against the backdrop of 'consensus politics' (Puetter & Puntscher Riekmann, 2020) as discussed in the introductory piece to this debate section, this underlines that France and Germany cannot, as a 'directoire', force the euro zone to move forward; yet they have suଏcient 'negative' veto power to act as a brake to EMU reform.…”

Introducing the debate section: ‘Who leads the euro zone? From crisis management to future reform’

“…Degner and Leuffen (2020) contribution is informed by in-depth case study research on Franco-German cooperation during the crisis. Griller and Lentsch (2020) highlight how euro zone institutional reforms eroded the rule of law. The contributions by Carstensen and Schmidt (2020) and Puetter and Puntscher Riekmann (2020), respectively, link the discussion of who leads the euro zone to broader theories of contemporary EU politics, which themselves were chiefly informed by the analysis of euro zone politics and crisis decision-making.…”

“…The notion of whether or not and in relation to which issues supranational entrepreneurship matters is an issue for contributions by Puetter and Puntscher Riekmann (2020) and by Kudrna and Wasserfallen (2020). Moreover, Griller and Lentsch (2020), return to the legacy of the Maastricht Treaty's provisions in this debate section and review the liabilities these provisions imply in relation to current reform processes.…”