Explaining Supranational Entrepreneurship Under the Juncker Commission : Fiscal Union vs. Banking Union

This article considers the supranational entrepreneurship of the Juncker Commission in achieving a more integrated fiscal union and completing the banking union. Empirical treatments of supranational entrepreneurship have prioritised structure over agency. To reintroduce agency, a new framework for evaluating the conditions for successful entrepreneurship in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is proposed. This is achieved by drawing on insights from ‘discursive institutionalism’. The changing institutional context as the crisis shifted from its fast- to slow-burning phase is examined, and the different economic ideas in EMU reform exposed. It is found that the Commission proceeded with caution on fiscal union but was ambitious in pursuing supranational reform on banking union. The decisive factor was institutional context and the opposition from Germany and the new ‘Hanseatic League’ for deepening fiscal union. It is argued that the outcome is comparable with the ‘strategic entrepreneurship’ that took place under Barroso II