Politicisation and Executive Dominance in Euro Crisis Decision-making: How Slovakia and Finland went from Initial Resistance to the Approval of European Rescue Funds

This paper provides fresh empirical and theoretical insights into the role of politicization and executive dominance in the context of the euro crisis. It reveals the decisive nature of the nexus of pan-European technocratic networks, intergovernmental policy coordination and parliamentary control in two largely neglected cases, Slovakia and Finland. In contrast to other research which considers primarily the lack of parliamentary oversight competences as contributing to a lack of political control of crisis management, this paper diagnoses a high degree of politicization of euro crisis management in parliamentary politics and argues that government representatives and parliamentarians relied on similar technocratic assessment of the market environment, which in turned helped to inform key political decisions. This framework is used to understand how both countries reached approval of the euro area rescue funds EFSF and ESM, despite their initial opposition to bailouts at key moments during 2010-2012.