ABSTRACT
The governance of the economic crisis in Europe has become a topic of undoubted current interest. There are two main reasons for this:
On one hand, the economies of Europe are facing a crisis of a magnitude and complexity not seen for decades: most European Union (EU) Member States have slipped back into recession in the first quarter of 2013 without having recovered from the major shrinkage that they suffered in 2009. The effects of the credit crunch can still be felt in matters such as access to funding 1 and problems in the balance-sheets of banks; and what looked like the certain break-up of the euro has barely been avoided, with some countries suffering a sovereign debt crisis and Cyprus hovering on the brink of abandoning the common currency in March 2013.
On the other hand, Member States have been unable on this occasion to make fully autonomous use (at national level) of a number of conventional economic policy instruments that would have helped them to tackle the recession. These constraints have affected members of the Eurozone in particular (countries which not only have no individual monetary and exchange policies but have also lost part of their freedom to manage their own fiscal policies).
