Southern Europe and the Euro Crisis Negotiations

With the notable exception of Malta, South European countries were severely hit by the euro crisis. In the extant literature, Southern Europe is sometimes presented as a relatively homogeneous group of debt-ridden countries with converging preferences on the terms of future integration steps. Nonetheless, at a closer look, the ways in which South European countries adjusted to external constraints during the euro crisis negotiations diverged substantially. Starting with a discussion of the responses to the euro crisis and of South European countries’ stances vis-à-vis a number of contested issues emerged during the 2010-2013 negotiations, this chapter provides a comparative account of the politics of the euro crisis reforms in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain. The focus is both on the positions adopted and on the patterns of domestic decision-making, with special attention to the relationship between governments and parliaments.