UDC 338.23:336.74(430+4-672EU)
Biblid: 0025-8555, 68(2016)
Vol. 68, No 4, pp. 327-350
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2298/MEDJP1604327D

Оriginal article
Received: 01 Sep 2016
Accepted: 01 Oct 2016

(UN)LIMITED INFLUENCE OF GERMANY IN EUROZONE: SURVIVAL OF COMMON CURRENCY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF HISTORICAL INSTITUTIONALISM

DABIĆ Dragana (Istraživač-pripravnik u Institutu za međunarodnu politiku i privredu, Beograd), ddabic@diplomacy.bg.ac.rs

The author draws on the insights of the theoretical framework of historical institutionalism, to assert that the German government is to a greater extent limited by its membership in the Eurozone, than it is usually pointed out in the analysis of its dominance. Above mentioned, is particularly evident when taking into consideration the relations of the economically most powerful member of the European Union and increasingly powerful European Central Bank. During the formative phase of the Economic and Monetary Union, Germany has facilitated the inclusion of assumptions relating to the widest range of independence of the European Central Bank into the Founding Treaty. By doing so, it has overlooked the possibility, that at the crucial moment of economic crisis, the European Central Bank will use its autonomy to pursue what is in the best interest of the Eurozone, contrary to the interests of the strongest economy of the block. The purpose of the analysis of the selected anti-crisis measures is to draw attention towards the ability of the institutional system that supports the common currency to adapt to external shocks, including the ways in which supranational technocratic institutions are broadening their competences. The end result, of the crisis driven multilayer process of institutional adjustment, is a gradual, but insufficiently transparent, centralization of economic governance in the Eurozone.

Keywords: Eurozone crisis, Economic and Monetary Union, historical institutionalism, unintended consequences of integration, Germany, European Central Bank