Introducing the debate section: ‘Who leads the euro zone? From crisis management to future reform’

Abstract

The euro crisis has shaken up the euro zone. It pushed the boundaries of political conflict, it triggered the most intensive period of decision-making so far and ultimately led to a set of institutional reforms, which define new domains of euro zone decision-making, such as in the case of financial assistance, and assign new roles to different political actors. At last, the crisis became the focal point of scholarly debate and new research activity, some of which has been finalised only more recently. This warrants new debate. In this debate section a group of scholars from political science and legal studies, who have contributed to the study of euro crisis decisionmaking and euro zone development in the context of recent collaborative research projects, discuss who leads the euro zone. Most importantly, they debate what we can learn from crisis decision-making and euro zone politics in recent years more broadly for the question of who leads the euro zone today and who may determine its future policy decisions and institutional reform trajectory.