Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

by Adam Tooze

Up to the early 2000s, the EU operated against a backdrop of what political scientists called a “permissive consensus.”51 Europe’s population accepted the gradual push for ever closer union without enthusiasm but also without protest. The EU is not an obtrusive presence. Contrary to prevailing myth, the EU is by no means a gigantic bureaucracy. The EU employs fewer people than most medium-sized cities. But it was a sprawling, incoherent constitutional structure lacking in democratic accountability. It was clearly unsatisfactory and would become even more so once the EU expanded in 2004 to include new East European members. In December 2001 the European Council charged a European Convention with drafting a constitutional document that would ensure efficiency, clearer lines of responsibility and prepare the way for Europe’s expansion. The convention consisted of a commission of bigwigs headed by that old warhorse of French Europeanism former president Giscard D’Estaing.52 The proposal enshrined a new balance between centralized decision making by majority vote and the irreducible role of the European nation-states. It subordinated all the various institutions and treaties that had made up the pillars of European integration into a single overarching European Union. Europe’s ambition was defined as being a “social market economy” that prioritized full employment, “social justice” and “solidarity between generations” as well as the fight against “social exclusion and discrimin...