Europe’s new transformations: How the EU economic constitution changed during the Eurozone crisis

Abstract:

This article argues that the Eurozone crisis has brought about two transformations in the basic rules of the EU economic constitution: the acceptance of public financial assistance to Eurozone Member States and the replacement of market discipline of domestic economies by bureaucratic discipline.

Treating the measures adopted during the crisis and especially the response of the ECJ in Pringle and Gauweiler as constitutional transformations makes it possible to develop a narrative of the crisis that avoids two popular and opposing approaches that lead to a dead end: the wholesale acceptance of the legality of the measures adopted during the crisis on one hand, or their dismissal as simply illegal deviations from the EU constitutional framework on the other.

In order to develop this constitutional narrative, the article borrows the theme framed by Weiler in his seminal article “The Transformation of Europe” and develops a constitutional interpretation of the moral hazard concept.