Executive Governance as a New Policy Model in the EU? The Crisis Management of the EU and its Impacts on the Political System
Abstract
The EU crisis has brought about fundamental impacts on the constitutional framework of the EU governance. The internationalization of EU law, the strengthening of the intergovernmental form of decision-making with the crucial role of the European Council and the corresponding weakening of parliamentary bodies can be seen as symptoms of a shift of the EU towards an executive form of federal governance. However, this trend may not be interpreted simply as a “return” of the sovereign state as the key actor within the European polity, as it might be according to traditional theories of emergency powers. The decision-making is de facto relocated from the political level to the level of administration. Thus, instead of de-parliamentarization, we can speak about de-politization or a reconfiguration of the political. The crucial role here – even in decisions of summits of the European Council and the Euro Council – is played by administrative bodies, particularly those of the Council Secretariat and the Commission’s services. While the economic crisis is (hopefully) already overcome, the overcoming of the crisis of democracy is not in sight.
Keywords
European Union, emergency powers, financial crisis, executive federalism, postpolitics
Author Biography
Vojtěch Belling
Born in 1981, he is a Czech lawyer, historian and political scientist. He worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then at the Office of the Government, where in the years 2011-2014 he was the State Secretary for European Affairs. He also worked as a lecturer at the Law Faculty of Charles University, Ruprich-Karls-Universität Heidelberg and other academic institutions. He is currently teaching at the University of Jan Evangelista in Ústí nad Labem and acts as the head of the EU and international organizations department in the Czech National Bank. He specializes in European law, philosophy of law and justice, and the history of political thought.