EU Competences in Crisis: Disentangling the Conflict between Monetary and Economic Legal Bases

This paper analyses the inherent competence conflict between the economic and the monetary policies under EU law. The particular policy areas have come under scrutiny with regards to the financial rescue packages issued in the course of the financial crisis (PSPP) as well as the Covid-19 pandemic (PEPP). Both crises have exposed some of the Union’s core morbidities: a lack of competence at EU level combined with a lack of cooperation at Member States’ level. The most recent judicial developments will be discussed in the light of the interests of the different institutional players: The urgency of response to crisis at EU level and the furthering of European integration on the one hand, and Member States’ sovereignty over retained competences and their designation as ultimate masters of the treaties on the other. The main argument made in this paper is that there is a mismatch between the Union’s objectives and its actual competences, and that a furthering of European integration in this area can only legitimately be achieved by treaty change.