The European Commission’s stronger role in economic governance has made it an unexpected ‘winner’ from the Eurozone crisis

Several commentators have argued that the Eurozone crisis has resulted in more intergovernmental EU decision-making, with the European Commission in particular being weakened by the role taken on by the European Council in the area of economic governance. Michael W. Bauer and Stefan Becker write, however, that while the Commission’s agenda setting powers have been curtailed, it has been considerably strengthened in managerial terms. They argue that far from being weakened, the Commission has emerged as an unexpected institutional ‘winner’ from the recent transformations of economic governance in the EU.