Chapter 12 shows that the Covid-19 emergency and the ensuing suspension of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) and its sanctioning mechanisms in 2020 led to crucial changes in the EU’s new economic governance (NEG) regime. For example, the transnational distribution of EU funds, institutionalised by the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF) Regulation in 2021, meant that the post-Covid NEG regime no longer mimicked the divisive beggar-thy-neighbour tools that transnational corporations use to steer their subsidiaries and workforce. Even so, EU executives continue to direct the post-Covid NEG regime without much participation by national parliaments and the European parliament or unions and social movements. Instead of using the financial sanctions of the suspended SGP, EU executives use the policy conditionalities attached to RRF funding to reach their objectives, which are in keeping with the overarching commodification script.

The book ends with an Epilogue that looks into the future: still in its infancy, the Next Generation EU (NGEU) is the perfect guinea pig for testing the theoretical propositions of Chapters 1 and 2, taking into account the lessons learned throughout the case studies of Chapters 3 to 5. The Epilogue presents the legal framework of the NGEU and the way it has been grounded in the Treaties. The choices of the legal bases of the instruments included in the NGEU brought to light debates on their appropriateness: the scholarship contests the use of the solidarity clause from Article 122 TFEU, highlights a possible breach of the balanced budget rule from Article 310(1) TFEU and doubts the appropriateness of Article 175(3) TFEU from Cohesion Policy as the basis for the spending side of the NGEU. The Epilogue then turns to the used and possible avenues of judicial review before the national and EU courts, to close the book with some final thoughts on what awaits individuals when holding decision makers in the EMU to account before courts.