ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the obvious asymmetries in the capacities of different social forces to interpret the multiple crises affecting the European Union and to translate their construals into national and/or supranational responses to these crises. The chapter describes the increasing variegation of the European Union. This is linked to the uneven development and crisis-prone character of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and helps to explain the growing sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone within the broader North Atlantic Financial Crisis. Cultural political economy (CPE) also explores the role of technological agential selectivity's in mediating semiosis and structure. The structural imbalances in the EU and the contradictory nature of the euro are reflected in narratives about the nature of the euro crisis and how it should best be managed. Thus early on in the Eurozone crisis, these elites transcended rival national crisis interpretations by promoting a competitive market-liberal economic imaginary that was already hegemonic at the European level.
