Who Governs the European Semester? an Analysis of the Production of Country Specific Recommendations in the Bilateral Relations of the Commission with Member States

At the inception of the Eurozone crisis, EU institutional actors have established the European Semester with the aim to strengthen the coordination of macroeconomic policies at the supranational level. Since its first iteration in 2011, the European Semester has been studied from a wide range of perspectives. While some authors have sought to understand how and to what extent has the eurozone crisis empowered EU institutional actors and altered its modes of governance, others have focused on the policy ideas diffused through the European Semester seeking to understand the substance of structural reforms. This paper opens the black box of this process of coordination of domestic policies by analysing how Country reports and Country Specific Recommendations are produced through discussions and negotiations in the Commission’s committees and in the bilateral relations between the Commission and each member states. Drawing on interviews with member states officials, the article shows who governs the European Semester and how.