This book provides a detailed analysis of the institutional transformations brought about by the financial crisis, focusing on the institution-building course of Europe and the Constitution-bending course in several Member States.

It discusses the seemingly contradictory interplay between national and European institutions and the law resulting from the crisis, arguing that the anti-crisis exceptionality constitutes the matrix of the new normality of the reformed European economic governance.

The author carries out a critical analysis of the new economic governance and its case-law with regular reference to relevant political episodes, key economic figures and to the hitherto lax modes and rules. The author also offers deep insights into the Greek adjustment programme and the crisis-related Greek and Portuguese constitutional case-law, presented in comparison with the German and French case-law.

The book concludes with a critical overview of the profound mutations in the role of national Constitutions, instigated by the new European economic governance, and the emergence of a democratically deficient meta-constitutional mode of functioning of both the European institutions and national Constitutions.

Table Of Contents

Summary of Contents



PART I

MOMENTS OF THE CRISIS AND THE METAMORPHOSIS OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE

1. Conceptual Flaw, Original Sin and Misapplications of the Maastricht Treaty

I. Introduction: The Interrelation between Monetary and Fiscal Policy

II. The Open Coordination Method, the Ambitious Goals and the Wishful Rules of the 'Macroeconomic Constitution' of the Maastricht Treaty

III. The Structural Asymmetry (and Original Sin) of the Maastricht Treaty and its Impact on the Crisis

IV. The Jurisprudential Quasi Pre-emption of an Already Shallow Discipline

2. The Greek Memoranda

I. The Message of the Figures and the Agony of the Titles

II. The Road to the Greek Memoranda

III. The Memoranda

IV. A Mathematical Scrutiny

3. Institutional Creativity

I. Some Political Prolegomena of the New Economic Governance

II. The Strategic Response: The New Economic Governance: 'Jetzt einmal wird in Europa Deutsch gesprochen'

III. The Tactical Response: Facing the Outbreak of the Crisis



PART II

ECONOMIC STABILITY: THE MEETING AND THE MIXING POINT OF EUROPE'S INSTITUTIONAL WORLDS

4. The Two Sides of the Coin: Constitutional Reviews of the Crisis Legislation

I. Introduction

II. The 'Givers'' Case Law I: The Bundesverfassungsgericht's Concern for German Constitutional Identity

III. The 'Givers'' Case Law II: France's Care for Her Republican Sovereignty

IV. The 'Receivers'' Case Law I: Greece

V. The 'Receivers' Case Law II: Portugal

5. The Schmittian and the Madisonian Moments of the Crisis and the Fate of the Constitution

I. The Moment of the Crisis

II. On the Exception and the Rule and the Schmittian Moment of the Crisis

III. The End of the Exception: The Madisonian Moment of the Crisis

IV. The Mystical Power of the Constitution

V. Bending the Parameters of a Constitutional Polity: The Emperor's Clothes

6. Gleichschaltung or a Metaconstitutional Catallaxy

I. The Melting Pots

II. The Direct Entry of Economics into Law and the Depoliticisation of Politics

III. A Metaconstitutional Catallaxy