“The New European Economic Governance (NEEG) began to emerge in 2010 with the adoption of a “European 2020 strategy”, which included the introduction of the socalled “European Semester” as a yearly cycle of European economic policy coordination. This was the point of departure for a set of initiatives and rules developed in the following years, aimed to strengthen economic and budgetary coordination for the EU as a whole and for the euro area in particular. In spite of the lack of a univocal definition, the NEEG can be considered as the new manner of how economic policy is made on the European level (or within the Eurozone) by self-organisation of self-reflexive interdependent actors. It contains the new forms and mechanisms of economic policy's coordination as well as the new institutional setting. Summarily put, it has been developed through a complex set of initiatives, including: (a) new instruments, such the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure, “Rescue” mechanisms, and the European Semester with growth survey; (b) new agreements (Fiscal compact, Europe 2020, Euro+ Pact); (c) new and/or stricter rules (1/20-debt-rule, expenditure rule, min. fiscal effort, more sanctions); and a new institutional setting (Commission and ECB more important; Troika; Eurogroup)7. The consequence of this chain of events is that, in barely three years, the concepts of what the EU and the Eurozone need to do to reform economic governance undergone a radical change, as well as the framework of public action at national and European level."

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