ABSTRACT
Having outlined the three fractions (Chapter 3) and their political agency (Chapter 4) this chapter now zooms in on the recent period of EU financial market legislation. As the introduction highlighted, post-2000 EU integration has marked a punctuated moment within neoliberalization warranting particular attention. This chapter does not primarily seek to explain the flood of EU directives. Instead I use the post-2000 period to highlight the emergence of a contingent and variegated neoliberal consensus among the three fractions. Here I focus on the policy positions themselves before Chapter 8 widens the lens to situate these positions within hegemonic projects. Embedded within the global reconstitution of capitalism – through changing modes of accumulation and neoliberal common sense – I argue that recent EU efforts have been underpinned by this consensus (Macartney 2009a). Here it is evidenced in the discourses of the fractions yet progressively materially condensed in social formations and institutions across the EU, the Lamfalussy process being an obvious example.
