From transparency to ambiguity: the impact of the ECB’s unconventional policies on the EMU

Abstract:

There is no disagreement that during the crisis the EMU has gone through an institutional change. However, there is no agreement concerning the type of change and its drivers. This article focuses on the impact of the ECB’s unconventional policies on the EMU at large. The article draws on the historical institutional theory of gradual change, and argues that the ECBs policies led to processes of conversion and displacement in the EMU. The article concludes, therefore, that during the crisis the EMU was not simply ‘completed’ but it had its institutional path altered.