Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 March 2015
This article examines how the Euro-crisis and responses to it have affected the horizontal relations of power between the EU Member States. It is argued that, whereas the EU institutional system had been designed since its foundation to strike a balance between state equality and state power, the Euro-crisis and the responses to it have increasingly upset this balance. A dynamic of inter-state domination is evidenced by the intergovernmental modes of governance within the European Council, as well as by the legal reforms in salient areas such as economic assistance, financial stabilisation and banking resolution, which have entrenched asymmetries between the states. In this article, it is argued that this dynamic constitutes a worrying development, given the anti-hegemonic nature of the EU integration project, and shows how intergovernmentalism paradoxically caters for powerful Member States. The article ends by considering options for institutional reforms, cautioning against the proposal to parliamentarise the EU and emphasising the potential of a new separation-of-powers system to restore a proper balance between the Member States.
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Conference on ‘What Form of Government for the European Union and the Eurozone?’ organised at Tilburg Law School on 5–6 June 2014, and at the workshop on ‘Constitutions and Financial Crises’ held at the World Congress of the International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL) in Oslo on 18 June 2014. I am grateful for comments received at both of these events, and for those of the editors and reviewer of CYELS.
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59 See eg Declaration by France and Germany at Deauville Summit, 18 October 2010 (requiring that budgetary surveillance and economic policy coordination procedures should be strengthened and accelerated) and European Council Conclusions, 28–29 October 2010, EUCO 25/1/10 (endorsing reform to strengthen budgetary constraints and enhance economic governance).
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76 Article 8 ESM.
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84 Article 4(4) ESM.
85 Article 4(7) ESM.
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87 Article 5(7)(m) juncto Article 37(2) ESM Treaty.
88 The ESM Treaty provisions which rendered Estonia’s participation to the ESM effectively irrelevant were challenged before the Estonian Supreme Court. See Supreme Court of Estonia, Case 3-4-1-6-12, judgment en banc of 12 July 2012. In its decision, however, the Court rejected the challenge upholding the constitutionality of the ESM Treaty. On this decision see also note 2 above.
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96 See note 93 above.
97 Article 11(2) SRF Agreement.
98 Article 3 Protocol No 36 (provisionally attributing to every Member State a number of weighed votes in the Council of Ministers). Because the Member States participating in the SRM are the Member States of the Eurozone, the total number of weighed votes of these 19 countries (as of 1 January 2015) is 224, meaning that at least 202 votes must be cast in favour of the SRF for it to enter into force. With 29 votes each, Germany, France and Italy, and with 27 votes Spain, are therefore necessary to reach the critical threshold.
99 Article 4 SRF Agreement.
100 Article 5 SRF Agreement.
101 Article 7 SRF Agreement.
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140 European Council Conclusions, 27 June 2014, EUCO 79/14, §25 (proposing the election of Jean-Claude Juncker with 26 heads of states and government in favour, and 2 against).
141 European Parliament, press release, Parliament Elects Jean-Claude Juncker as Commission President, 15 July 2014 (reporting vote to elect Jean-Claude Juncker as Commission President with 422 votes in favour, 250 against and 47 abstained).
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152 BVerfG 123, 267 (2009) §§284–285.
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154 Calculations are based on the data on the apportionment of seats for the European Parliament elections of May 2014 available at: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20130308STO06280/html/How-many-MEPs-will-each-country-get-after-European-Parliament-elections-in-2014 [last accessed 17 April 2014].
155 Article 189 TEC.
156 See eg S Hix and B Højland, The Political System of the European Union, 3rd ed (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
157 See also note 148 above.
158 Council Decision of 25 June and 23 September 2002, amending the Act concerning the election of the representatives of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage, 2002/772/EC, Euratom [2002] OJ L 283/1.
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162 Martin Schultz promoted his campaign in Germany with electoral posters stating ‘Nur wenn Sie Martin Schultz und die SPD whälen, kann ein Deutscher Präsident der EU-Kommission werden’ [Only if you vote for Martin Schultz and the SPD can you have a German President of the EU Commission].
163 See also Bartolini, S, Restructuring Europe (Oxford University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
164 See also note 145 above.
165 B Romano, ‘E’ Juncker il candidato PPE alla Commissione Europea’, Il Sole 24 Ore, 8 March 2014.
166 Editorial Comments, ‘After the European Elections: Parliamentary Games and Gambles’ (2014) 51 Common Market Law Review 1047, p 1048.
167 European Parliament, press release, Members Elect Chairs and Vice-chairs of Parliamentary Committees, 8 July 2014.
168 D Willis, ‘In New Congress, House Committees Will Carry a Strong Texas Accent’, The New York Times, 26 December 2014 (reporting how, in the 114th Congress from 2015–16, representatives elected in Texas, which is the second largest US state, will assume the leadership of six out of 21 Committees in the House of Representatives and indicating that, among others, representatives from California, the largest US state, held five committees, and the speakership, in the 111th Congress, from 2009–10).
169 See text above accompanying nn 66–102.
170 See also Fabbrini, S, Which European Union? Europe after the Euro Crisis (Cambridge University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (making the case in favour of a new constitutional settlement in the EU based on separation of powers).
171 See eg G Papandreou, Foreign Minister of Greece, contribution to the debate of the European Convention, amendment No 43 (suggesting the direct election of the President of the European Council and explaining that this would ‘contribute to the substantial equality of the Member States.’) in Convention Secretariat, Summary sheet of proposals for amendments, 9 May 2003, CONV 709/03.
172 F Fabbrini, ‘Austerity, the European Council and the Institutional Future of the EU: A Proposal to Strengthen the Presidency of the European Council’ (in press) 22 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies.
173 Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (TE Wick ed, Modern Library, 1982), p 351.