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AbstractThe outbreak of the COVID‐19 pandemic appears to have inflicted a decisive blow to ordoliberalism's influence on the economic governance of the Eurozone. This contribution shows that the decline of the ordoliberal ideas precedes the pandemic and can be traced in the management of the financial crisis of 2007–2009. Drawing on the theoretical approach of sociological institutionalism and using insights from 18 interviews with participants in the Economic and Financial Committee and the ECOFIN, this article analyses the evolution of policy‐makers' economic policy beliefs and their impact on the fiscal reform of 2010–2013. It is argued that the establishment of the European Semester was the institutional reflection of an intellectual shift from rules‐based to institutions‐based discipline. I find that the latter conflicts with core ordoliberal principles of the Freiburg economic school, opening the way for alternative institutional arrangements, such as the Recovery and Resilience Facility.

This dissertation asks three interrelated questions about economic policy coordination: (1) Why do we see persistent macroeconomic imbalances that make international coordination necessary? (2) What kind of economic policies does the European Union promote in its member states via its coordination framework, the European Semester? (3) What determines whether governments implement recommendations issued under the Semester? The first paper argues that economic ideas, and their emphasis in media reporting, help secure public support for policies that result in external imbalances. It finds that the dominant interpretations of current account balances in Australia and Germany concur with distinct perspectives: external surpluses are seen as evidence of competitiveness in Germany, while external deficits are interpreted as evidence of attractiveness for investments in Australia. Survey experiments in both countries suggest that exposure to these diverging interpretations of the current account has a causal effect on citizens' support for their country's economic strategy. The second and third papers analyse policy recommendations under the European Semester, arguably the most ambitious example of economic policy coordination worldwide. The findings show that the European Union does not use the Semester to promote a single economic model across all member states. Recommendations do not uniformly recommend more reliance on the market or the state. Rather, they tend to suggest fiscal restraint and less protection for labour market insiders, while simultaneously promoting measures that benefit vulnerable groups in society. During the second decade of EMU, recommendations have gradually become more favourable of state intervention. The fourth paper investigates possible reasons for (non-)compliance with the Semester. It argues that recommendations are more likely to be implemented when their policy direction is in line with national governments' economic ideology. The analysis shows that recommendations advocating less ...

AbstractEurope 2020 and the European Semester signal a major change of direction in EU social policy with new governance arrangements, policy orientations and politics. This paper analyses 290 Country Specific Recommendations and 29 interviews to answer two questions: 1) What type of social policy is being advanced by the EU at present? 2) How are EU social actors able to advance EU social policy under current conditions? It argues that the degree of progress in EU social policy in the European Semester (2011–15) has been conditional and contingent. EU social policy is more oriented to supporting market development than it is to correcting for market failures. We explain these developments by a combination of factors including the strong agency exerted by some social actors in a context of constraint, the moderation of expectations and the adoption of strategic practices by key actors, and political divisions among the Member States.

The focus of this article is on EU social policy-making since 2010 in the context of new governance arrangements and changing policy orientations and politics under the European Semester and Europe 2020. Analysis of these developments can tell us something very important about the consensus around social policy in the EU, and in the member states more broadly, given the potentially important role to be played by social policy in adjusting to the financial crisis. The last five years have been especially momentous in an EU context. The European Semester was introduced in 2011, inaugurating a significant new annual governance cycle to monitor and enforce compliance with stringent budgetary and structural reforms (European Commission, 2010). A key part of the Semester - and the strongest mechanism available to the EU institutions to influence social policy developments at member state level - is the issuing of Country Specific Recommendations (CSRs) to member states in areas of perceived weakness. Europe 2020, the ten-year programme of economic, employment and social policy goals and priorities of the EU, introduced ten integrated guidelines to be taken forward by five headline targets and seven flagship initiatives. Social policy has an explicit place in Europe 2020, especially in terms of poverty and social inclusion, employment, pensions, health and social care. For example, one of the five targets aims to lift some 20 million people out of poverty and social exclusion by 2020.

We study whether and to what extent EU countries implement recommendations on macroeconomic imbalances given by the EU in the so-called European Semester. We assess how recommendations have evolved since 2013, based on a new database. We also study how EU recommendations on addressing macroeconomic imbalances compare to recommendations given by the International Monetary Fund. Overall implementation of recommendations by EU countries has worsened in the last few years, in particular when it comes to recommendations addressed to countries with excessive macroeconomic imbalances. The policy content of the recommendations is broadly aligned with economic priorities emphasised by their corresponding legal bases, but to our surprise a sizable share of recommendations, such as on childcare, are also labelled as relevant for resolving macroeconomic imbalances. Moreover, for countries with macroeconomic imbalances, the IMF tends to emphasise financial imbalances more frequently than the EU. We also note that the EU makes significant political choices about which imbalances are judged to be excessive and which are judged not excessive. Low implementation is likely a result of the fundamental dilemma facing the EU. National policies have major cross-border implications making coordination important, but countries take sovereign decisions mostly based on national considerations. We therefore argue that recommendations given in the context of macroeconomic imbalances should be focused on key issues of macroeconomic and cross-border relevance. Moreover, we note a significant gap between analyses as described in the recitals of recommendations and the actual recommendations, and would urge greater consistency. Finally, the European Semester exercise is very difficult to digest and communication of key analyses and recommendations could be significantly improved to make them more accessible to national policymakers.

The purpose of this note is to present economic governance in the European Union, its 2017 cycle and its main tools for the coordination of economic and fiscal policies of the 28 member states through a list of parallel procedures and processes.

This article discusses the impact that the reforms of the European Union's economic governance since 2011 have had on the European Commission's role as a policy entrepreneur. Particular attention is paid to mechanisms that are applied by the Commission to extend its scope beyond its given formal competences to shape national reform agendas. The research interest is based on the assumption that the Commission is a 'competence-maximising rational actor' (Pollack, 1997), whose primary organisational goals are to expand the scope of Community competence and increase the Commission's own standing within the policy process. Accordingly, this research contributes to the scholarly debate by identifying mechanisms applied by the Commission under the European Semester to shape European and national reform agendas in areas of sovereign policymaking competences of the member states.

This article discusses the impact that the reforms of the European Union's economic governance since 2011 have had on the European Commission's role as a policy entrepreneur. Particular attention is paid to mechanisms that are applied by the Commission to extend its scope beyond its given formal competences to shape national reform agendas. The research interest is based on the assumption that the Commission is a 'competence-maximising rational actor' (Pollack, 1997), whose primary organisational goals are to expand the scope of Community competence and increase the Commission's own standing within the policy process. Accordingly, this research contributes to the scholarly debate by identifying mechanisms applied by the Commission under the European Semester to shape European and national reform agendas in areas of sovereign policymaking competences of the member states.

Artículo de revista ; The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the centrepiece of the Next Generation EU (NGEU) instrument, has become the European Union (EU) economic policy coordination priority. This has made it necessary to temporarily simplify the European Semester. To gain access to the RRF, the Member States (MSs) have to set out the investments and reforms to which the funds will be assigned in their national recovery and resilience plans (RRPs) and which must be aimed fundamentally at responding to climate change-related challenges, digitalisation, the strengthening of human capital and public sector efficiency. The assessment of these plans by the European Commission (EC) will be central to the EU annual economic policy coordination cycle within the European Semester, which retains the habitual Excessive Deficit and Macroeconomic Imbalance procedures.

The European Semester became an essential part of the revised governance architecture of the Europe 2020 reform strategy for the Single European Market under the conditions of the global financial crisis and the emerging eurozone crisis a decade ago. The article examines to what extent the European Semester offers channels to establish throughput legitimacy by granting national parliaments the ability to effectively scrutinise executive decision-making in the annual policy cycle. Poland is chosen as the case study for parliamentary scrutiny of the EU's system of multi-level governance in the East-Central European region. The analysis adopts a liberal intergovernmentalist two-level approach. On the domestic level it concentrates on the involvement of the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, on the drafting of the Polish National Reform Plans for the annual Semester policy cycle between 2015 and 2020. The basis for the analysis are official transcripts from the plenary debates in the relevant committees, the European Affairs Committee and the Public Finance and the Economic Committee. The Polish case study illustrates that the European Semester represents a predominantly elite-driven process of policy coordination, which is strongly geared towards EU-level executive bargaining processes between national governments and the European Commission at the expense of domestic parliamentary scrutiny.

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, EU Member States managed to agree on key financial instruments to support the economic recovery of Europe. The decision to manage these instruments within the existing European Semester procedure has put this procedure into the spotlight. Adequate parliamentary involvement in this procedure is crucial. The pandemic can serve as […]
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