Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain Ten Years After the Start of the Euro-Crisis. A Constitutional Appraisal

This special section features four comments concerning the impact of the Euro-crisis, ten years after the start of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US, on the four Eurozone countries that probably have been affected the most. In fact, the year 2018 marked the end of the financial assistance programmes activated between 2010 and 2015 in favour of Ireland, Portugal, Spain Cyprus and Greece (which benefited from three rescue packages). We have preserved a proper constitutional perspective of analysis and we have tried to understand what constitutional consequences stemmed from the crisis and from the related application of EU and international measures at the Member State level. Leaving aside the case of Cyprus – characterised by unique economic, social and geopolitical features – we have asked national experts to illustrate the most significant constitutional implications of the Euro-crisis in their country. We have suggested a set of topics of possible interest: i) budgetary procedures and the role of Parliaments; ii) Relations between the State government and regional/local authorities; iii) possible constitutional conflicts between supranational constraints and national constitutional identities; iv) workers' rights and rights of pensioners, with special attention to the (im)balance of the social security system; v) protection of savings; vi) tax law reforms and principle of legitimate expectations