Within the realm of EU studies, ideas such as the ‘grand theories’ have long conditioned the way that analysts view EU policy-making. Yet, the more fine-grained ideas that influence or even cause policies to emerge have only more recently come to the fore as a topic of analysis. One of the defining features of the crisis has been the role and potential breakdown of the EU’s policy-making ‘blueprints’ (Blyth 2013): the ideas that condition the basic processes of politics in Europe. The broader implications of this statement – that we need to question more generally what the ideas are that animate European economic integration, how these manifest within particular spaces, and where they come from – provides the problematique for this panel.  It therefore considers the role of ideas as they pertain to the polity,  to the systemic level processes that occur within the EU, and also to the more micro-level influence that occurs in particular policy spheres and institutions. The panel has a focus on issues of political economy (in particular, since the crisis) but sets these domains within their broader sectoral and historic context.