A Temporal Alliance for Eurobonds. A Critical Political Economy Perspective of NextGenerationEU’s Common Debt
Keywords
No Thumbnail Available
Authors
Issue Date
2024-08-18
Language
en
Document type
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Title
ISSN
Volume
Issue
Startpage
Endpage
DOI
Abstract
This thesis seeks to explain the European Union’s (EU) decision to issue Eurobonds to finance the NextGenerationEU (NGEU) recovery package in 2020. The topic of common debt issuance and its implied debt mutualization had divided EU Member States for over a decade. Unsuccessful Eurobonds proposals during the sovereign debt crisis were testimony to this political contention. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Eurobonds were established as the fundamental building block of financing NGEU. A critical political economy perspective is employed to answer this puzzling decision by the EU. This thesis puts forward a theoretical framework that is based on the Amsterdam Project (AP) and insights from Gramsci, and feminist critical political economy. Methodologically, this thesis draws on historical materialist policy analysis (HMPA) and document analysis. The analysis puts forward an explanatory narrative that shows that during COVID-19, a temporal alliance in favor of Eurobonds can be outlined on the basis of the alignment of the interests of relevant social forces, with the financial capital fraction shifting its position on Eurobonds. A further scrutiny of subordinate social forces, and the hegemony of the financial capital fraction, underpinned by debt-led accumulation, outlines an absence and marginalization of counter-hegemonic forces.
Description
Citation
Supervisor
Faculty
Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen