Abstract
This chapter examines conflicting governmental stances surrounding two reform proposals in post-crisis European Union (EU) economic governance, namely the set-up of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) and the introduction of a European Financial Transaction Tax (FTT). Both issues were fiercely debated, with discordant stances in revamping the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) specifically coming from the UK and Germany. Following the societal approach to governmental preference formation, this study provides a comprehensive overview of national preferences and illustrates that the governmental stances towards the ESAs and the FTT were strongly shaped by two societal dynamics, sectoral interests and value-based ideas. In a cross-country comparison, the discourse and actions towards financial market supervision and regulation investigates: (1) how and to what extent these dynamics determined conflicting stances, (2) when each of these mattered, and (3) how they interacted with each other in shaping variance in governmental stances.
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Notes
- 1.
The societal approach to governmental preference formation integrates three independent variables, interests, ideas, and institutions (Schirm 2016). Due to space constraints, this chapter applies the first two actor-centered variables.
- 2.
Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. Although statements of support for this broad-based FTT by the remaining heads of state and government (Euractiv 2018), as well as the respective finance ministers continue, a final agreement is still pending at the time of writing.
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van Loon, A. (2020). Societal Dynamics in European Economic Governance: A Comparative Analysis of Variation in British and German Governmental Stances. In: Rewizorski, M., Jędrzejowska, K., Wróbel, A. (eds) The Future of Global Economic Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35336-0_9
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