The Role of the EU Institutions in Setting Up the Banking Union. Collaborative Institutional Leadership in the EMU Reform Process

There has been a lot of debate about the role of EU institutions in managing the Euro crisis and EMU reform process. Within the academic community, many have argued that we are witnessing ‘new intergovernmentalism’ in which institutional leadership has been replaced by governance through intergovernmental coordination. Others question this trend, but do not deny that the role of the institutions might be changing. Even neofunctionalists, the classical defenders of supranational entrepreneurship, admit that the institutions might have been acting less as the classical ‘engines of integration’ and were more involved in ‘laying out the tracks’. We intend to flesh out this (supposedly) new role of the institutions, by means of an in-depth process-tracing analysis of the setting up of banking union. The banking union is generally considered to be the most comprehensive reform and the most significant transfer of competences since the Treaty of Maastricht. The SSM, SRM and BRRD (as part of the Single Rule Book) were all negotiated and agreed in two years, from June 2012 to June 2014, a remarkable feat in EU decision making. This paper focuses on the division of labour and interplay between the different institutions. While the initiative stemmed from the four presidents framework, we also look at the role of the Ecofin Council and its rotating presidency and the role of the European Parliament. We identify key moves and strategic choices in process management. Also, we identify patterns of collaboration at different stages and at different levels of the decision making. Thus, we seek to determine whether and to what extent the role of the EU institutions has indeed changed. Does the handling of banking union represent an acknowledgment of new realities in post-crisis EU decision making? Or are we back (from intergovernmental crisis management) to legislative business as usual?