Don’t put the blame on me: How different countries blamed different actors for the Eurozone crisis

In 2018, eight years since the Eurozone crisis began, there was still no agreement on a comprehensive set of reforms to the governance of the Eurozone. But why had such agreement been so hard to reach?

Henrik Müller, Giuseppe Porcaro and Gerret von Nordheim suggested that part of the reason laid in the different narratives that had been expressed in each Eurozone state. Using data from a study* of newspaper coverage in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, they highlighted that coverage of the crisis, and particularly which set of actors were to blame for it, had varied substantially across different countries.

* Tales from a crisis: diverging narratives of the euro area (Bruegel: Policy Contribution, No.3 February 2018)