Economic and financial affairs in times of crisis

This paper analyses the evolution of the legislative activity in the field of economic and financial affairs and the impact of the crisis on this sector. Even if the relations between member states are marked by tensions, we do not observe the same tendency at the institutional level: the increased number of legislative acts and their increased length do not correspond to growing conflicts between the institutional actors. Actually, the economic and financial affairs are less marked by conflicts than the other sectors. Moreover, the legislative actors still strive to find intra-institutional and interinstitutional compromises, which shows the resilience of the European institutions in spite of political disagreements among member states. The short-term and structural changes that have affected the EU for a decade have a limited impact on the consensual dynamics that remains a characteristic feature of the EU institutional system.