A recent statement by the head of the eurozone’s finance ministers concerning crisis-hit European countries, saying they had wasted their money on “drinks and women”, and the ensuing refusal to apologize2 seems apt to bring new life (and folklore) to a weary debate on EU financial stability standards, anticrisis measures ineffectiveness and the future of European integration.
In the last few years a huge debate has developed in the social sciences over the impact of the international financial crisis on the European Union and the cohesion among members States. This debate was part of a wider discussion over the neoliberal theory dominance in the western political and economic arena, and especially in the European integration process3. The legal profile of this debate concerns mainly the impact of the crisis on EU institutional framework and on member States constitutional systems, together with the peculiar aspects of anti-crisis measures adopted, on both levels, as a reaction4.
The aim of this paper is to offer a small contribution to this debate from the Italian constitutional law point of view, by looking at it in the perspective of a representativity versus representation dichotomy.
One of the main questions I would like to address concerns the impact of EU decisions concerning the crisis on the functioning of the Italian frame of Government. In approaching to this issue I will try to focus on the correspondence between what is being communicated to the public and the type and contents of measures approved by the Italian Government. […]
