From Governance to Government? An Analysis of the Commission's Bid to Politicize EMU Rules

Abstract

The role of the European Commission has always been stretched between two poles: on the one hand, the Commission was seen as guardian of the Treaties, i.e. as the supranational enforcer of a multilaterally agreed, rule-based governance; on the other hand, the Commission is increasingly perceived as the kingmaker of the European political game, acting instead as the pivotal power in a supranational form of government. While the wave of new policies enacted to counter the Eurocrisis has already strengthened the powers of the Commission, this paper analyses how the Commission has succeeded in widening its autonomy by politicising the discourse and the practice of further reforms of the economic governance, with particular reference to the debate on the establishment of a contractual agreements' mechanism and on fiscal rules flexibility. The last part of this paper discusses the implications for the Commission's democratic legitimacy of the combined effect of the accrual of competences and of their politicisation.