Eu Economic Governance: The French and German Views

Abstract

‘In every crisis there is opportunity.’ This saying can be applied to the economic and financial crisis that Europe has been facing over the past 3 years. One could view the crisis as an opportunity to make up for past mistakes or past reluctance to do what was necessary. This was the approach adopted by the European institutions when they came up with their proposals on economic governance. Although these proposals are innovative, they were not invented on the spot. They are the product of different, often diverging views on what a European model of economic governance should look like. The Centre for European Studies (CES) has invited two authors, one French and the other German, to provide insight into the thinking of French and German policymakers when it comes to the issue of how the economic governance of the European Union should be organised. In his contribution, Jean-Francois Jamet starts by describing France’s frustrations with Europe’s past economic governance. He then goes on to describe how the economic crisis has been perceived in France as a window of opportunity to make up for the missed opportunities of the past. Werner Mussler begins his article by explaining the different conceptions of economic governance held by France and Germany. He then describes how the German views of a monetary union and of the economic crisis have influenced the German conception of economic governance, and goes on to explain how they have shaped certain German propositions during the reform discussions. In the last section of this debate paper, CES’s Stefaan De Corte describes the European governance model as it has been and is being decided upon, before providing conclusions on several of its specific features.