Draghi’s ‘Bumble Bee’ Challenges to Securitization Theory: a Comparative Analysis of Political and Media Discourses about the Eurozone Crisis

Abstract

This article examines the tipping point of the Euro crisis as a turning point for EU integration processes. First, I introduce the concept of securitization and its usefulness to grasp breaches within the constitutional order. I then define the concept of ‘crisis’ around which this article revolves. A contextualization of the Spanish bail-out and the ECB’s intervention of mid-2012 follows. Before moving on to the results of the analysis, brief methodological comments are made. Reading the episode at hand through the discourses of a variegated sample of political actors provides hindsight into its complexity. While newspapers’ discursive strategy fits the concept, Rajoy and Draghi’s interventions defy the logic of securitization by acting extraordinarily while denying threats and their own exceptional behavior.