The institutional architecture of economic union

This chapter provides an overview of the institutional architecture for macro-economic governance in the EMU, analysing the role of the EU supranational and intergovernmental institutions and explaining their reciprocal interactions. Specifically, the author analyses the tasks of the Council, the Commission, the Eurogroup - including when this acts as the board of governors of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) - as well as the European Council and the Euro Summit, reflecting the complexity of coordination of economic affairs in the EU. Moreover, he details the limited powers of the European Parliament in EMU, and underlines the narrow justiciability of acts adopted by the intergovernmental institutions - as reflected in the case law of the European Court of Justice on crisis-response measures. As the author emphasizes, the inter-governmental response to the euro-crisis significantly affected the EU inter-institutional balance in economic governance, but this created challenges, including on the relation between the European Council and the Council, which will need to be addressed over time.