From Coercive to Bottom-up Europeanization? The Impact of Bailed-Out Countries on the Post-Crisis Eurozone Architecture

This article will review the changing Eurozone governance architecture since the eruption of the sovereign debt crisis with a special focus on the developments and proposals for reforms during the post-crisis period. During the Eurozone crisis the creation of the new European economic governance was the result of the asymmetry of power between creditors and debtors (Losada, 2016). The reform of the Stability and Growth Pact and the introduction of conditionality in the European Stability Mechanism, between others, reflected the preferences of powerful countries such as Germany, while countries in financial difficulties had a minimal influence on the design of those reforms (Fabbrini, 2016). On the other hand, conditionality experience and processes of coercive Europeanization have restored the credibility of bailed-out countries as ‘good’ financial managers. The key aim of this article is to assess whether bailed-out countries have been able to influence the latest reforms’ proposals of the Eurozone governance architecture during the post-crisis period, once their credibility was reinstated. It will be further investigated whether the European Commission and the rest of the political actors involved learned from the crisis and from the economic, political and social impact of conditionality upon member-states and the European public opinion more generally. The article will be based in a comparative study of the relevant lending agreements’ documents and the most recent Eurozone reforms’ proposals as well as interviews with key EU officials. A fresh and critical look at the literature of bottom-up Europeanization and on whether the crisis has changed the way we should conceptualise the impact of the EU upon member states will be offered.