04.12.2023

Departmental Seminar: United in Distinctiveness - Institutionalisation of Differentiated Integration in EMU during the Sovereign Debt Crisis

Alexander Schilin (Leiden University), on Wednesday, 13 December, 16:15-17:45, Room 124 at the Institute of Political Science (or online via Zoom)

Differentiation has evolved into a systematic feature of European integration. Still, EU member states have been eager to maintain unity and not let differentiated integration (DI) be reflected in institutions and processes of EU governance. The sovereign debt crisis was a turning point. The distinction between euro area member states (EAMS) and non-EAMS became accentuated in crisis management and reform processes in Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), particularly through the rise and reinforcement of euro area specific institutions. So far, few contributions have studied the political and institutional implications of DI in the EU. Building on sociological institutionalism, the project examined whether and, if so, how and with what implications DI has been institutionalised in EMU governance. Drawing on elite interviews, it analysed the organisational inclusiveness of crisis management structures, the evolution of the Eurogroup and Eurogroup Working Group, procedural norms and elite ideas. The findings suggest that the distinction between EAMS and non-EAMS has become embedded in how member state representatives perceive political reality, determine mutual role expectations and organise deliberation and governance processes. While this institutionalisation of DI in EMU was facilitated by particular circumstances of the sovereign debt crisis, its implications are evident in EMU governance and reform processes until today. The project makes theoretical and empirical contributions to account for DI in institutional and political developments in EMU and, thus, aims to enrich institutionalist debates in EU studies.

Alexander Schilin is a Lecturer at the Institute of Political Science in Leiden, the Netherlands. He joined Leiden University in 2019 after obtaining a MA degree at the Institute of Political Science in Tübingen where he studied “Democracy and Governance in the European Union”. He submitted his PhD thesis in September 2023. Recently, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Political Science, University of Victoria, Canada. His research focuses on Differentiated Integration in the EU, Economic and Fiscal Integration in the EU and the Council of the EU. Alexander Schilin has published in the Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Integration and Compa-rative European Politics, and in the Routledge Handbook on Differentiation in the EU (2022).

Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/93089750663 Meeting ID: 930 8975 0663, Passcode: 142311.