Intergovernmentalism and its Outcomes: The Implications of the Euro Crisis on the European Union

The paper argues that the Lisbon Treaty has institutionalized a dual constitution, supranational in the single market's policies and intergovernmental in (among others) economic, financial, foreign and defence policies. The euro crisis has thus represented a test for verifying the validity of the intergovernmental side of the Lisbon Treaty. The measures adopted were unable to tame market's pressures on the euro bringing the member states' governments to set up two new intergovernmental treaties. Facing an existential challenge, the intergovernmental method has faced a systemic difficulty in solving the basic dilemmas of collective action between governments for answering that challenge. This difficulty has raised the necessity of a radical transformation of the intergovernmental structure for the economic governance of the Union. Will that mean the EU needs to move beyond the Lisbon Treaty?