Financial stability for which Europe?

This article analyses the measures deployed by European Central Bank (ECB) actors to supervise eurozone banks. It looks at how the legal implementation of the concept of ’financial stability’, which justifies the ECB’s actions to preserve Member States’ public finances, is invested with different meanings by public and private actors in the field of international financial regulation (bankers, economists, heads of national supervisory authorities). By studying the controversies surrounding the use of different supervisory instruments mobilised by the ECB in expert arenas ranging from academic debates to the Basel Committee, it is possible to grasp the competing problematisations of the ways in which "financial stability" is ensured, as well as how the ECB’s competences are negotiated.