Rahm Emanuel’s pithy aphorism regarding the handling of crises (“You never want a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before”) rings true to observers of the crisis in the EU. Crises can be windows of opportunity for change. The purpose of this panel is to bring together papers that cover two facets of the responses to the ongoing crisis in the EU. The first focuses on the implications of the handling of the crisis for the balance between EU institutions and modes of operation. The second relates to the intra-institutional implications of the ongoing crisis. On the first front the objective is to examine the implications of the handling of the crisis for the balance between supranational and intergovernmental institutions, the balance between technocratic and more openly political elements of the EU’s institutional architecture and, finally, the enhancement of independent supranational institutions (such as the troïka, the European Stability Mechanism, etc.) which have been an essential element of the handling of the crisis. On the second front, particular emphasis will be placed on the growth of the power of economists within the EU system. The panel aims to contribute to a better understanding of the political and institutional implications of the deliberate decisions made by the dominant actors. Arguably, these may be more enduring than one could have predicted before the onset of the crisis.