Did the Euro Crisis end German Exceptionalism in the Federal Government's EU Policy Co-ordination?

Germany has proven an exception to the rule that European integration empowers bureaucratic and executive actors and thereby strengthens coordination offices of head of states or governments (Beichelt 2015, Sturm & Pehle 2011). German EU policy has been co-ordinated without hierarchisation between federal ministries and the chancellery within the federal core executive. This has been explained by the principle of ministers’ personal ‘portfolio responsibility’ (Ressortprinzip) which prevailed in EU policy coordination over the chancellor’s responsibility for ‘general guidelines of policy’ (Kanzlerprinzip). Since Maastricht, however, European integration has moved from market regulation towards core state powers (Genschel & Jachtenfuchs 2016). This gave the integration process more public salience, most notably during the Eurozone crisis since 2010. As a reaction to this crisis, German EU coordination became more hierarchically structured, with the chancellery and the ministry of finance assuming increasing responsibilities in arbitrating conflicts between different ministries. Against this backdrop, our study investigates the question whether the Euro crisis ended the exceptional non-hierarchical nature of inter-ministerial coordination of EU policy in Germany not only temporarily and instead institutionalized hierarchical rules and procedures in favour of the chancellery. The study pursues a least-likely design as a strong, conservative-led finance ministry with a clear ideological profile should not require competence shifts towards a like-minded chancellor’s office. Our conclusions build on empirical data gathered in expert interviews with federal officials from various ministries and the chancellery. Beichelt, T. (2015) Deutschland und Europa: Die Europäisierung des politischen Systems, Heidelberg: Springer VS. Genschel, P. and Jachtenfuchs, M. (2016) ‘More Integration, Less Federation: The European Integration of Core State Powers’, Journal of European Public Policy 23(1): 42–59. Sturm, R. and Pehle, H. (2011) Das neue deutsche Regierungssystem: Die Europäisierung von Institutionen, Entscheidungsprozessen und Politikfeldern in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Heidelberg: Springer VS.