Banking on Union: EU governance between risk and uncertainty

Introduction: Financial crisis and sovereign debt crisis have precipitated unexpected reform of the European Union. 2014 establishment of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and conclusion of the Treaty for Stability, Growth and Co-ordination (TSGC) have significantly deepened the integration basis, providing for a measure of solidarity between some, if not all member states. Necessary assistance, however, will be delivered to troubled economies within the managerial constraints of a regime of economic governance, rather than with the full redistributive blessing of a properly political union. The increasingly technocratic nature of the post-crisis regime for European monetary stability has attracted the ire of many commentators; in particular, as the strict conditionalities now imposed upon national budgetary autonomy within a framework of ‘executive federalism’ (Habermas 2011) have usurped traditional national democratic process, where the only available space for protest is to be found on the streets rather than parliaments of Athens, Lisbon and Madrid