This paper investigates the transformations in the EU multilateral surveillance framework by focusing on the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP). By examining the new features of EU multilateral surveillance, the paper asks the question of whether the reforms are likely to generate the sought after outcomes. The paper answers this question by drawing from the experience of an important international surveillance exercise, namely the one that is carried out by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Specifically, the paper examines whether the new EU multilateral surveillance framework has effectively addressed the problems that have long prevented the IMF preventative and corrective arms of surveillance from being fully successful. The systematic comparison between the IMF and the EU new multilateral surveillance framework, which is based on both primary and secondary sources bear important implications for how multilateral surveillance could be designed and implemented in a way to make it more effective. Next to these institutional design issues, the paper also aims at advancing the theoretical debate on surveillance as a specific mode of governance at both the EU and the international level.
