Beyond Independence: ECB’s Relative Autonomy and the Stabilisation of the Eurozone

The ‘relative autonomy of the state’ is a concept advanced by Nicos Poulantzas to describe functions of the State that appear to oppose short-term capitalist interests to guarantee the continued subordination of the working class to the dominant class and ensure the sustainability of the Capitalist State. The concept provided important insights into the complex role played by the state apparatus in the postwar capitalist states challenging the predominant instrumentalist perspectives of the state within the Marxist political thought. The added value of the concept was that it put forward an explanation of policy measures favouring the working class, such as the establishment of the welfare state, thereby advancing a more sophisticated analysis of the function of the State. This paper employs the concept of the ‘relative autonomy of the state’ to analyse the function of the European Central Bank (ECB) in the stabilisation of the Euro area during a tumultuous period of multiple crises (2008-2023). The paper examines the ECB’s monetary policy decisions in three episodes, namely the financial crisis, the sovereign debt crisis and the pandemic, to evaluate the degree of its relative autonomy vis-à-vis class interests. It is argued that despite the ECB’s institutionalisation as the world’s most independent central bank, its limited relative autonomy exacerbated class struggle within the member states of the euro area between 2008 and 2015 and risked inflicting a major blow to capitalist interests via the collapse of the common currency. The eventual stabilisation of the Eurozone after 2015 is linked to an increase in the Bank’s relative autonomy.