At its forthcoming spring meeting, on March 24th-25th, the European Council will consider a comprehensive package of measures that can open a new age of European economic governance: one that is truly collective; capable of enforcing economic policy coordination and preventing the build-up of unsustainable imbalances in government as well as private balance sheets; and backed up by credible, quasi-automatic sanctions for any member state posing a threat to collective stability. This CEPS Policy Brief aims to contribute to Council deliberations first by clarifying the proper role of EU financial assistance to member states confronted with sovereign debt crises and second, by outlining the tasks that the new European Stability Mechanism (ESM) should be able to perform in order to put in place an effective and credible crisis management system for both the eurozone and the European Union.
