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16 - Ten Years of the European Semester

From the Sovereign Debt Crisis to the COVID-19 Crisis

from Part III - The Economic and Fiscal Dimensions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2023

By
Edgars Eihmanis
Edited by
Dariusz Adamski ,
Fabian Amtenbrink  and
Jakob de Haan
Dariusz Adamski
Affiliation:
University of Wroclaw
Fabian Amtenbrink
Affiliation:
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam
Jakob de Haan
Affiliation:
University of Groningen
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Summary

This chapter traces how the European Semester – its policy goals, institutions, and legitimacy – have changed over the decade 2011–21. Drawing on the most recent political science scholarship, the chapter makes a three-fold argument. First, it argues that the Commission has travelled a long way from pushing fiscal consolidation and structural reforms through enforced fiscal and macroeconomic policy surveillance to emphasizing social investment. Second, the chapter challenges the widely held notion that the Semester suffers from limited effectiveness and argues that its country-specific recommendations can have indirect effects in the longer term, such as putting new issues on the agenda and shaping national policy debate. However, the chapter expects that the Commission’s influence over national policy processes will rise in the post-pandemic period through the conditionality of the Recovery and Resilience Facility. Third, the chapter argues that representation of broad social interests changes over time. Social partners, civil society, and national parliaments may be excluded from EU economic governance processes but tend to adapt to EU institutional changes over time.

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The Cambridge Handbook of European Monetary, Economic and Financial Integration , pp. 290 - 304
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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