Lessons from the Greek Crisis: Between Diminished Sovereignty and European Depoliticisation

Since the outbreak of the crisis, the proliferation of new norms, rules and institutional mechanisms changed considerably the architecture of the Economic governance and consequently the role of member states within it. The EMU moved from a loose macroeconomic coordination system to a strict monitoring and punitive system based on sanctions and conditionality. Greece has been subject to macroeconomic and structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) imposing severe policy conditionalities, thus allowing the EU to penetrate into areas where the Treaties do not envisage common policies (fiscal policy, tax policy, social policy, administrative policy). The country had to deal with the most stringent version of the system (submission of national reform programmes, negotiation to determine policy measures set out in the Economic Adjustment Programmes etc.) that puts intense pressure on its national coordination mechanisms and institutions forcing them to adapt themselves functionally and politically in order to face supranational scrutiny (vertical Europeanization process). The paper discusses the theoretical debate about Greece’s politico-administrative adaptation to the post-crisis EU conditionality. It seeks to highlight whether the obligations and stringent conditions of EMU membership have exacerbated structural deficiencies within the Greek core executive, thus weakening severely the centrality of the Greek State and its bargaining position in the intergovernmental bodies such as the Eurogroup and the European Council (asymmetrical intergovernmentalism). The analysis adopts a Governance theory perspective exploring the meaning of diminished sovereignty and political autonomy from an administrative and functional perspective and the rise of European depoliticised expert-centered governance for the (sound) management of public finances.