The European Union financial crisis and its constitutional and legal implications

Following the Lehman Brothers default in 2008, a turmoil in financial markets an a major financial global crisis started. This crisis and its effects – liquidity, credit flows, economy deceleration, etc.-spilled over to the real economy and affected several EU members states and EU Banks and Financial institutions.

The EU reacted to this crisis strengthening EU economic governance with a number of measures and reforms: Two-Pack, Six-Pack, Treaty on Stability, Coordination in the Economic and Monetary issues, etc. As a result, Member States economic, fiscal and budgetary policies are now closely surveyed in order to monitor that Member States achieve to lower the public deficit, balance their national budgets, maintain rigorous public finances.

The scholarly has largely studied the efficiency of the above mentioned measures and reforms from an economic point of view. However, little has been said from a legal point of view. Indeed, the adoption of these new European economic governance mechanisms raise a variety of concerns. In this context, panelists will map the different measures adopted and will illustrate how, formally and materially, some of these new measures have entered into force disregarding EU Law.

Speakers: José Manuel Martínez Sierra, RCC Director, Jean Monnet ad Personam Professor in EU Law and Government, Co-chair, EU Law and Government Study Group and Co-chair, Center-Periphery Study Group, Center for European Studies at Harvard University; Diego González Cadenas, RCC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Visiting Researcher at the Institute of Global Law and Policy at Harvard Law School.