Some patterns appear as we go through the list of institutional novelties:
1) Increase in technocracy and preference for regulatory solutions. An indirect consequence is the favor for discipline over growth as it better fits in this scheme;
2) Increase of the role of top political bodies (European Council, Eurozone Summit);
3) A sense of urgency, limiting the room for debate - for time-consuming parliamentarism - so validating the “technical” solutions”. The establisment of “technical goverments” in Greece and in Italy at the apex of the crisis was an indirect consequence of this approach;
4) Extensive use of the conditionality mechanism.
A fact crops out: the compression of democratic governance at national level by decisions stemming from less democratic procedures.
The Union is the best example of legitimacy and accountability at supranational level, but economic governance was established as one of its less supranational policies.
The debate originated by these reforms pushes towards a different direction: relevant political documents encourage the enhancing of the Union's democratic foundations (see the “Blueprint for a deep and genuine economic and monetary union”, the Four Presidents Report, and the 2013 State of the Union by the President of the Commission). The expected increasing politicization of the European Commission in the 2014 European elections is a further step in this direction.
