2012 Volume 2012 Issue 32 Pages 53-64
The article analyses EU’s institutional response to crisis of the Eurozone of 2010-2011. Using examples of the 2010 loan package for Greece, the EU’s 2010-2011 assistance schemes for Ireland and Portugal and the escalation of the Eurozone crisis in 2011, the article argues that neither the Lisbon Treaty nor specific Eurozone’s rules provided the EU with instruments to tackle the crisis efficiently. In contrast, it is demontrated that the legal framework of the EU made action of the Eurozone states more complicated and problematic from the legal point of view. Therefore, the European elites had to improvise and look for non-elegant ad hoc institutional solutions on the margins of the Lisbon Treaty. The article then focuses on individual forms of this institutional improvisation (Greek Loan Facility, European Financial Stability Facility, European Financial Stability Mechanism, behavior of the European Central Bank) and analyses their legality and legitimacy.
