What does it really change? The impact of the 2008 financial crisis on the political game of the European Central Bank.

This paper aims at highlighting my PhD thesis‟ subject on “The transfer of ideas and policy models in the EU: the case of the European Central bank” with the specific example of the financial crisis which started in Fall 20081. The following questions are addressed: 1) How does the ECB‟s discourse legitimize its presence in other areas than the strict missions defined in the Maastricht Treaty and 2) how does the Bank try to promote its own model of structural reforms amongst the other actors involved in the EU debate. Two other questions highlight the first ones with the example of the crisis: 3) Does the crisis impact on the rhetoric of the ECB‟s discourse? 4) Does it undermine the authority and credibility of the Bank towards the other EU institutions? In order to answer to these questions, the paper is divided in three main parts: the first takes stock of the current literature analyzing the role of ideas and discourses in the ECB and/or the EMU‟s creation; the second analyses the ECB‟s official discourses and the impact of the crisis on them, the third aims at giving research perspectives to put the discourse back in its context