Repairing the political damage caused by the Troika | EurActiv

The Troika interventions in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus have generated long-lasting political damage for the image of the EU that needs to be fixed or compensated: this requires promoting a European political game organised along national and party lines, write Yves Bertoncini and Valentin Kreilinger.

Yves Bertoncini is director of Notre Europe - Jacques Delors Institute and Valentin Kreilinger is a research fellow at the institute.

"Composed by experts from the IMF, the Commission and the ECB, the “Troïka” symbolises the exercise of enormous powers by technocratic actors and, as such, perfectly echoes the traditional critic of the EU’s “democracy deficit”.

The emergence of this new body must lead not only to a better assessment of the real nature and scope of the EU powers regarding its member states, but also to identify more clearly the way EU decisions are made and the “input legitimacy” they are based on.

On this second issue, it is striking that the eurozone crisis has generated unprecedented lively debates across Europe, which naturally contribute to the input legitimacy of EU decisions, albeit making the EU less effective and also less popular.

Repairing the political damage caused by the Troika | EurActiv