Building EU economic autonomy: Evaluating 15 years of crisis governance

Economic internationalization constrains the capacity of democratic government at the national level, specifically the capacity to regulate the economy, to foster economic growth, and to redistribute economic gains. The European Union is a major test case of the capacity to regain democratic control over economic policy in an age of internationalisation. Taking stock of 15 years of crisis governance, this paper seeks to develop an understanding of what democratizing economic governance in the EU can mean and under what conditions the EU has been able to advance in that direction. Economic governance is conceptualised along three pillars: regulatory policy, economic development, and distributive policy. The paper evaluates the EU governance regime for all three pillars for three time points: the pre-crisis regime, the evolution of the regime during the euro and covid crisis, and the prospects for further evolution in the run-up to the 2024 European elections. The findings highlight that while the EU has been an effective regulator throughout, its capacity to steer and democratize economic development and distribution has varied strongly over the crisis years. Still, with the eventual introduction of common resources for strategic economic policy in the form of the 2020 Recovery and Resilience Facility, it has created a prototype for a more democratic economic policy. Whether this promise will be fulfilled critically depends on whether the facility will remain an incidental instrument or something like it will become the cornerstone of EU economic policy in the years to come.