The Shifting Sands of European Integration: From Judicialization to Central Banking Hegemony

Judicialization has long been viewed as a central engine of European integration, with the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) historically credited for advancing the project beyond the intentions of member states. Through landmark doctrines such as direct effect and the primacy of EU law, the Court reshaped the constitutional structure of Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet traditional integration theories – whether neofunctionalist spillover or intergovernmentalist bargaining – struggle to explain contemporary developments. Their predictive power has diminished, and the stagnation of treaty reform underscores their limits: the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009 remains the last major constitutional moment, marking a political dead end in formal integration. New attempts for a European Constitution have been postponed or abandoned completely. This paper argues that as the CJEU’s integrative momentum plateaued and political actors resisted further treaty change, the center of gravity shifted toward supranational executive institutions – most notably the European Central Bank (ECB). In the context of economic and financial crises, the ECB adopted a role well beyond its original design, deploying unconventional monetary instruments and crafting de facto fiscal oversight mechanisms. Through programs such as bond-purchasing operations, conditionality frameworks, and its central position in the crisis-management architecture, the ECB has driven integration without treaty amendments or broad political consent. The “holy trinity” of European Commission, the ECB and the CJEU have been in the driver’s seat for European Integration for the last decade and shaped a new way of integration process that seemed to have reached a dead end. But crisis management opened up a new pathway for the integration process, which is now followed through by supranational institutions and agencies rather than the political institutions. While echoing the earlier judicial method of quietly expanding competences, the ECB’s mode of integration differs significantly. It operates with a technocratic, executive logic that centralizes authority rather than dispersing it. Whereas the CJEU empowered individuals and national courts, the ECB’s actions have constrained member-state autonomy and marginalized the European Parliament, raising concerns about democratic legitimacy and sovereignty. Integration is again becoming an elite-driven process, widening the distance between supranational authority and European citizens, leading to rising populist movements all over the European continent. The paper concludes that current integration dynamics cannot be fully captured by established theories. The post-Lisbon era illustrates a shift from treaty-based constitutional development to crisis-induced, institutionally improvised integration led by supranational institutions and agencies. This moment calls for a new theoretical framework – one that explains how supranational bodies expand their authority without political mandate, how integration proceeds in the absence of treaties, and how democratic legitimacy can be preserved when monetary and executive institutions shape the future of the Union. This emerging form of “post-treaty integration” demands analytical tools capable of capturing a Europe increasingly defined not by constitutional design but by technocratic necessity.