Integration in Crisis: A Regulationist Perspective on the Interaction of European Varieties of Capitalism

Abstract

The whole pattern of European integration is in crisis and important institutional transformations can be observed. It is argued that traditional comparative approaches, such as the Varieties of Capitalism literature, fall short in providing an adequate analytical framework to deal with the European crisis. We propose applying a theoretical framework which allows us to focus on the specific and asymmetric linkages between national economies in combination with a systematic analysis of institutions at different spatial levels. This is provided by a modified and expanded regulation approach. We provide an empirical overview of the different regimes of accumulation and their interaction, and our analysis of the asymmetric interaction helps us to explain the crisis and its dynamics. In addition, we analyse the reactions to the crisis and the consequences in terms of institutional transformations at different spatial levels. Finally, conclusions regarding the dynamics of future political-economic developments in Europe are drawn.

Keywords

European integration crisis regulation approach varieties of capitalism

Introduction

The crisis has shown the ruptures between core and periphery in Europe. This questions the continuity of the present institutional configuration of the Eurozone and the prevailing form of European integration. Since the 1980s Europe has experienced very low growth rates in historical terms, as well as compared to more recent developments in other world regions. Moreover, Europe was hit particularly hard by the crisis of 2008–09 and has yet to reach the pre-crisis level with regard to economic activity. International institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are drawing a rather pessimistic picture of future economic development in Europe. The crisis of Europe in general, and the Eurozone in particular, is frequently framed as a crisis caused by different forms of imbalances and public debts. This Keynesian view overlooks the deeper contradictions of the European economy and integration in Europe. In a similar vein, as this special issue shows, the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) approach has substantial difficulties in dealing with the crisis. In order to provide a systematic analysis of the Eurozone in crisis we propose a particular theory in the critical political economy tradition. We return to the original Marxist approach of the regulation school.

To adequately address the specific dynamics characteristic of European economic integration, we modify and expand this approach. First, we provide a more detailed framework for the distinction of different regimes of accumulation and their interaction. Second, the role of the state and social forces is discussed in a more precise way than is commonly the case in regulationist approaches. Third, we specify the territoriality of accumulation and regulation in order to obtain a framework for the analysis of European integration. This should allow analysis of the underlying transformation and the partial spatial shift of institutional forms — particularly the changing territoriality of regulation, which took place in the process of European integration and which is crucial for understanding the dynamics of the present crisis. The modified approach enables us to analyse different forms of economic developments, and the institutional dynamics and political processes linked to them at different spatial levels.

Modified regulation theory as a solid basis for the analysis of crises

For a variety of reasons the VoC approach has become very fashionable in the past ten years. Bohle & Greskovits (2009: 361) argue that the main reasons for the success of this approach have been that it fits with the Zeitgeist, and that it effectively combines a scientific appeal with a normative concern for providing arguments for the long-term sustainability of coordinated capitalisms against liberalized capitalisms (despite pressures from the global economy). Its scientific appeal is seen mostly in its micro-foundations and the incorporation of mainstream economic tools, plus the ‘testability’ of the persistence of systemic diversity. We would add that the VoC approach fits well with Critical Rationalism, the currently dominant epistemological paradigm. Although within the institutionalist literature important weaknesses have been addressed and challenges discovered (cf. Deeg & Jackson, 2007), these critiques fail to provide a more systematic analysis of capitalism, as Bohle & Greskovits (2009: 373; emphasis in original) noted: ‘the effort to theorize capitalism's dynamics remains a futile exercise, as no convincing theory of capitalisms can be elaborated without settling first on an adequate theory of capitalism’ (see also Bruff & Horn in this special issue).

Well before the start of the hype of the VoC literature, Hugo Radice (2000: 738) concluded: ‘the analysis of institutional variety and change raises broader issues of social analysis, including the structure/agency question and the problem of functionalism: here it has been argued that historical political economy provides an approach which can recognize and accommodate these difficulties’. More recently, and more broadly, Ian Bruff shows that the VoC and other institutionalist approaches lack a coherent understanding of capitalist conditions of existence, leading to an ‘institutional reductionism’ (Bruff, 2011: 482). Providing a systematic critique based on a Gramscian approach, he argues that social life is the foundation of institutions and not vice versa. In addition, capitalist social life implies an asymmetry in the perception of capitalist institutions: ‘social life is the foundation of, and not founded upon, institutions; there is a fundamental asymmetry within our views on the world towards the need to produce; in capitalist conditions of existence our thoughts about the world are skewed towards capital's rather than labour's dependence on the market’ (Bruff, 2011: 490). All these arguments clearly show the limits of the VoC and associated literatures, and the need for a more systematic theoretical approach that allows for understanding the specifics of capitalist relations of production in order to discuss institutions, their variety, and their historical transformation.

Compared to the VoC literature, Keynesian approaches have a stronger focus on capitalist instability. Therefore, they have elicited renewed interest in the present crisis. Keynesian approaches address important issues at the macro level and help with understanding the macroeconomic interaction between different national economies and the problems of related imbalances. In addition, they show clearly why anti-crisis policies based on austerity are doomed to fail (cf. EuroMemo Group, 2011). Nevertheless, these approaches have in common that they lack a systematic theoretical understanding of political processes. Although they acknowledge the importance of institutions for stabilizing the economy, they do not explain their emergence and are puzzled as to why political processes do not lead to the emergence of institutions which would complement their policy strategies. Implicitly, most Keynesian approaches seem to share the normative values of the Fordist class compromise. Adequate institutions and economic policies, and a working class subordinated to the needs of capital, are seen as the preconditions for economic growth as the ultimate goal, which in addition is assumed to be necessary for keeping unemployment low (cf. Nichoj & van Treeck, 2011). Hence, Keynesian economists are often at pains to explain the dynamics of anti-crisis policies.

The regulationist approach emerged in the 1970s as a new current of Marxist theorizing in political economy. An important strand of regulationist economists later evolved in an institutionalist direction (cf. Boyer, 2004), but this strand is ambiguous in dealing with the relationship between capitalist structures and institutions. In political terms, it shows a clear bias in favour of continental European forms of capitalism as allegedly more social ones (Boyer, 2011). Thus, it shares some common perspectives with the VoC and related literatures. However, some regulationists have continued the original Marxist research programme of the approach. Within Marxist thinking, regulationist theory can be characterized as a variety of ‘methodological Marxism’ (Moulian, 2009: 62). This variety of Marxist theorizing is based on Marx's dialectical method. Abstract concepts are confronted with concrete relations and are modified if necessary (Aglietta, 1982: 13). In this regard, the regulationist approach stands in a Critical Realist tradition (Jessop, 2001). Marxist regulationists developed concepts of a medium level of abstraction which provide a systematic framework for the analysis of historically and spatially specific capitalist relations. In doing so, they have an abstract conception of capitalism that highlights the inherent necessity to accumulate — i.e. the spiral of money-commodity-more money (‘m-c-m’) — and the centrality of wage labour. In the accumulation process, individual capitals compete with each other. Thus, capitalism is characterized by inherent contradictions. Social procedures of regulation can deal with the tensions and conflicts which are produced by these contradictions, but are unable to resolve them within this mode of production. From this perspective, the process of capitalist development and the eventual overcoming of the capitalist mode of production are historically open-ended processes (Aglietta, 1982: vi).

Regarding the analysis of the dynamics of accumulation, three different axes of regulation can be distinguished: productive/financialized accumulation, extensive/intensive accumulation, and introverted/extraverted accumulation (Becker, 2002: 67). It is essential to distinguish between productive and financialized accumulation. In the case of dominant productive accumulation, productive sectors of the economy are at the core of its dynamics, which means that investment is concentrated in this sector. In contrast, in the case of dominant financialized accumulation, financial assets are at the centre of the economy. Within financialized accumulation two main forms can be distinguished:

Accumulation of ‘fictitious capital’ (Marx, 1979: 487, 510), i.e. different types of shares and securities, and

Different types of interest-bearing capital such as credits (Becker et al., 2010: 228).

Fictitious assets become important in cases of stagnating productive accumulation because insecurity increases and supposedly more liquid assets are preferred. When financialization is based on interest-bearing capital, the expansion of credit and differences between active and passive interest rates, i.e. the spread, are important. This second type of financialization is prevalent in the (semi)-periphery (Becker et al., 2010; Güngen, 2010: 104). In addition, according to its social reach, we distinguish between elite-based and mass-based financialization (Erturk et al., 2008: 15; Becker et al., 2010: 230).

Extensive and intensive accumulation can be distinguished in the case of productive accumulation. Extensive accumulation is characterized by an extension of the working day or an increase in the intensity of work, while intensive accumulation refers to the increase of relative surplus value by cheapening wage-goods (Becker, 2002: 67). In a case of strong outward-orientation based on export, this can be called active extraversion. Conversely, the case of strong import-dependence is called passive extraversion (Becker, 2006: 14). Based on the distinction of different axes of accumulation, the interaction of different national regimes of accumulation, i.e. the division of labour, can be analysed. It is the analysis of this specific interaction of regimes of accumulation that helps in the analysis of the contradictions that led to crisis in Europe (Becker & Jäger, 2010).

Beyond its focus on the characteristics of the process of accumulation, regulation theory looks at structural forms that deal with the structural contradictions of capitalist societies. According to regulationists, a temporarily stabilized accumulation process requires an appropriate mode of regulation. The mode of regulation consists of institutions which are called structural forms: these are a set of institutions which evolves through class struggles within specific historical social relations of production (Aglietta, 1982: 16). In his fundamental study entitled Régulation et crises du capitalisme, Aglietta (1982) identified three structural forms: the wage relation, the form of competition, and the monetary constraint. The wage relation is related to the vertical line of social conflict in capitalism: class conflict. The conflicts between capital and labour evolve around issues of wage formation, working time and conditions, and social security. Thus, the issues of the wage relation clearly transcend the borders of the factory and the limits of trade union activity: for instance, the state is a central element of the wage relation. In consequence, the labour movement branched out into workers' parties in most capitalist countries. Struggles over state policies, which relate to the wage relation, focus particularly on issues of the degree of commodification of wage labour (Aglietta, 1982: 16).

Regarding the other two structural forms, different fractions of capital pursue different accumulation strategies. Thus, there is a second, horizontal line of conflicts that cuts through classes, namely, competition. Aglietta's approach to competition was solely focused on competition between individual capitals (Aglietta, 1982: 187). However, it would seem to be useful to include competition within other social classes in this structural form as well (Becker, 2002: 159). Taking the third structural form, in a capitalist economy money is central both to the accumulation process and to the reproduction of wage labour. Money is at the beginning and the end of the valorization process (Aglietta, 1982: 280) — thus, there is a monetary constraint. Moreover, access to credit is an important element of the monetary constraint: for instance, the funds for buying machines, raw materials, and employing wage labour might be raised through credits, and workers' consumption to some extent might depend on credit as well. Due to the internationalization of capital, the relationship between national monies is another important dimension of the monetary constraint. Byé & de Bernis (1987: 870) pointed out early on how important the role of monetary norms has been in establishing and perpetuating unequal relationships between centre and periphery.

Although Aglietta (1982: 16) emphasized the central role of the state in the structural forms, he did not really define its place in regulation. In contrast, Lipietz (1985; 1992) perceived the state as one of the structural forms, albeit a special one as the ‘guarantor’ of the other structural forms. For him, the state is a separate organization that prevents the different social factions from wearing each other down in endless struggles. Both civil society and the state are perceived as social filters and the place where social compromises are forged (Lipietz, 1992: 184). This account is not completely convincing, since the state seems to have a quality that renders it different from the (other) structural forms. Therefore, Becker (2002: 122) proposes conceiving commodity form and state form as fundamental social forms in capitalism, because both forms are present in all structural forms. From a Gramscian perspective, he sees civil society and political society (i.e. the state) as being closely interrelated terrains of struggle (see also Bieler in this special issue). In civil society, interest groups representing specific social interests struggle to establish their preferred social norms and influence state policies. Capital has a structural advantage over other classes because the state is fiscally dependent on well-functioning capitalist accumulation (cf. Becker, 2002: 127). Thus, the state is ‘strategically selective’ in ways which tend to benefit capital over other classes (Jessop, 2002: 40). However, as noted above, we must be aware of the distinctions between different forms of capital — for example, productive and financial — as this helps us to explain Europe's current crisis in a more nuanced way.

This observation about the state and strategic selectivity is important for another reason, because Parisian regulationists tended to locate both the regimes of accumulation and the structural forms at the national level. Aglietta (1982) did so rather implicitly, Lipietz (1983) rather explicitly, and the French regulationists, who are institutionally inclined like Robert Boyer, also strongly rooted their concepts at the national level. Lipietz (1983: 129) argues in favour of the primacy of the nation-state over other levels of political territoriality because the nation-state is the instance where the fundamental contradiction between capital and labour is finally dealt with. With this reasoning, it is difficult to conceptualize changes in the space of accumulation and the configuration of political spaces of regulation which characterize the process of European integration and its crisis (see also Sippola in this special issue). This is crucial, because changes in accumulation strategies might necessitate changes in the spatial/territorial levels of the state and the state form. Moreover, this is not automatic, even if macro developments might encourage certain changes. For example, forces of capital might favour transferring elements of the monetary constraint to the European Union (EU) level because this favours their interests in extracting more surplus value through ‘discipline’ (cf. Gough, 2004). Conversely, the forces of labour or other social classes, and their political representatives, might resist changes to the territorial level of the state and regulation. Thus, class conflict is one axis of conflict that exercises an influence on the changing spatial configurations of the regulation. However, vertical social conflicts are not the only type of conflicts which have an impact on spatial configurations of regulation. Conflicts within classes may play a role as well. Finally, it is in moments of great crisis that the struggles over spatial configurations become particularly acute, as we are now witnessing.

The structure of asymmetric European integration

European integration has been based on a neoliberal framework since the mid-1980s (Cafruny & Ryner, 2007; van Apeldoorn et al., 2008). This implies that structural forms have been modified: rule-based policy making and the introduction and subsequent strengthening of so-called independent regulatory authorities have been key features of this re-regulation. The modification was expressed by ‘flexibilization’ of labour markets, monetarist monetary policy, financial market liberalization, free movement of capital across Europe, and an institutional framework that guaranteed privileged market access to natural resources from all over the world. This changing content of regulation went hand in hand with a substantial shift in the territoriality of regulation to the European level. The structural background for this process was the crisis of Fordism and the breaking down of the Bretton Woods system, which implied a transformation of the structure of global finance in favour of the USA, termed the ‘Dollar-Wall Street Regime’ by Peter Gowan (1999).

Neoliberal integration and the introduction of the Euro were very much favoured by the dominant strand in neoliberal thinking. It was expected that a hard currency and the Maastricht criteria would contribute to discipline inflationary spending by governments and labour's demand for higher nominal wages. This facilitated the implementation of neoliberal policies at the national level (Gough, 2004: 198). From a German perspective the overall goal of the introduction of monetary union was to prevent peripheral European countries from using devaluation as a means of boosting competitiveness (cf. Bellofiore et al., 2010: 141). With the implementation of the Euro, a shift in the content and territoriality of the monetary restriction took place, which also made it possible for important parts of European labour to support the introduction of the Euro. It was argued that this could protect the European economies against speculative attacks from the Dollar-Wall Street Regime and hence provide a stable framework for economic growth. In addition, the formation of European Monetary Union was motivated in part by strengthening of the West European position in international currency competition (de Brunhoff, 1997: 119).

However, the expectations regarding higher growth and a greater degree of stability were not fulfilled. Even before the crisis, the Eurozone was characterized by very low growth rates compared to the rest of the world (Cafruny & Ryner, 2007). From the Euro's introduction to the beginning of the crisis, the neoliberal regulation contributed to the unfolding of specific economic dynamics and patterns of interaction among different national regimes of accumulation. It supported extraverted productive accumulation strategies in Germany, the core country of the Eurozone, and in other countries directly linked to this model (e.g. Austria, the Netherlands, etc.), and enabled different forms of financialized accumulation strategies in the periphery of the Eurozone (e.g. Ireland, Spain, and Greece). On the surface, this was based on a supposed macroeconomic stability and low interest rates. Capital inflows led to substantial current account deficits in the periphery and money capital flowed from the core countries of the monetary union, which were characterized by regimes of accumulation based on active extraversion and productive accumulation, to the periphery. The neo-mercantilist export regimes benefited from the fact that countries within the periphery of the Eurozone had no monetary policy instruments available to protect their productive sectors and to avoid the accumulation of (external) debts — either private or public.

In 2000, when the Euro was introduced, the German current account was balanced, but afterwards steadily increased to reach a surplus of 7.7 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2007 (Hein & Truger, 2007: 21; Ederer, 2010: 590). German exports — to an important extent based on capital goods — were stimulated by a substantial modification of the wage relation, which included the implementation of a low-wage sector and the reduction of unemployment benefits under the banner of Hartz IV (cf. Hein & Truger, 2007). ‘Competitive disinflation and social regression’ went hand in hand (Lechevalier, 2011a: 47). As Lechevalier points out, the low-wage sector is now as important in Germany as in the USA (ibid.). Mass-based financialization was of minor importance in the case of Germany — private household debt did not change significantly between 1995 and 2005 (Stockhammer, 2009: 22) — although the so-called Riester pension reform (2001) represented an important step towards partial financialization. Notwithstanding these dynamics, the German economy was characterized by some elite-based dynamics of financialization. Banks increasingly de-linked from industry and re-oriented their activities to financial markets abroad. This transformation was fostered systematically by a specific re-regulation of the financial sector in Germany (Sablowski, 2008: 145).

Therefore, while the financialization of the domestic German economy remained limited, German financial business became closely involved with highly financialized economies through financial investments and the provision of credits. German exports to the European periphery were financed by credits provided by German banks, and Austria and the Benelux countries have been closely related to this productive system. Moreover, these countries have neo-corporatist elements in their wage relation, which facilitated a restrictive income policy and thus the continued bias towards active extraversion. The north-east of Italy formed part of the German-centred productive system as well (Mazzocchi, 2010: 261): financialization was rather weak and the banking industry followed a conservative model. Two small export-oriented Central and Eastern European economies with strong links to the German manufacturing industry — Slovenia and Slovakia — joined the Eurozone in 2007 and 2009, respectively. However, as a more peripheral and lower-income economy, Slovenia's entry into the Eurozone accelerated the emergence of a debt-financed real estate bubble (cf. Urbinati, 2010: 331). In Slovakia, this tendency was not so strong although it did also exist (Becker, 2010: 521).

Other countries within the Eurozone were characterized by financialization and therefore linked differently to the German regime of accumulation. Among them, France showed a less outward-oriented regime of accumulation and a relatively low degree of mass-based financialization compared to the southern periphery of the Eurozone. Becoming a member of the EU had already led to periods of partial de-industrialization in peripheral countries such as Spain, Portugal, and Greece, and joining the Eurozone further consolidated the weakness of the productive sectors by undermining their competitiveness (see also Rodrigues & Reis in this special issue). Growth in Portugal was rather weak but Spain experienced a credit-based real-estate boom that turned out to be one of the key components of its economic growth (López & Rodríguez, 2010). In a similar way, private debt increased heavily in Greece, although starting from a much lower level. The increase in government spending (and debt) also contributed to growth (Stathakis, 2010: 111), and these together were clear signs of mass-based financialization. In Spain, banks were more careful in taking risks, which to an important extent can be explained by more restrictive banking supervision. Financialized accumulation ended up with high current account deficits in the case of Spain (9.5 per cent of GDP in 2007) and Portugal (10 per cent), and soaring deficits in Greece (14.7 per cent) (EuroMemo Group, 2010: 11; Ederer, 2010: 590). This worsening of the current account in the periphery of the Eurozone was reflected by the German current account surpluses and the corresponding growth of financial claims.

Financialization in Central and Eastern European economies was related to the dominance of the banking system by Western European banks and, in most countries, was mainly driven by private household borrowing (Hardy, 2010). This is a typical feature of mass-based financialization. A number of these economies — both inside and outside the EU — have been closely linked to the Eurozone through processes of partial Euroization, enabled by monetary restrictions which encouraged foreign currency loans (Becker, 2007: 244; Becker, 2010: 524). This high degree of Euroization implied strong links to the Eurozone, because any depreciation or devaluation implied a revaluation of foreign exchange debts. Thus, the indebted middle strata were tied to the prevailing exchange rate policy, and the informal Euroization served as a strong informal impediment to devaluation (Becker, 2007). As a result, the monetary regime favoured huge capital inflows. These inflows were not used to finance productive undertakings to a significant extent; rather, they fuelled real estate booms and consumption. GDP growth was thus based on rapid credit growth, while weak manufacturing structures and overvalued currencies resulted in enormous deficits of the trade balance and the current account. In most countries, current account deficits surpassed 10 per cent of GDP in the pre-crisis years and, in Latvia and Bulgaria, even the threshold of 20 per cent (Becker, 2010: 524). External debt soared rapidly and, by the end of the 2000s, banks from smaller Western European countries, especially Austria and Sweden, had acquired significant shares in this banking market and were major creditors of the region (Maechler & Ong, 2009).

The crisis in Europe

The present crisis brought the rift between centre and periphery in the Eurozone into the open. The increasing polarization between export-oriented core countries and the import-dependent periphery had existed before, but was generally not noticed because financial flows covered the current account deficits. The specific configuration of the monetary constraint at the European level, which allows for such crosscountry financial flows and increasing imbalances, is important, as any currency risk in the Eurozone was supposed to be practically non-existent before the crisis (see also Rodrigues & Reis in this special issue).

Passive extraversion and financialization in the European periphery

In the peripheral EU countries outside the Eurozone, currency risk also tended to be neglected in the pre-crisis years; however, this changed immediately after the global crisis gained momentum in September 2008. The peripheral European countries outside the Eurozone were hit by the drying up of capital inflows in autumn 2008 and, thus, much earlier than the peripheral Eurozone Member States. In Hungary and Romania, the currencies suffered from considerable depreciation in autumn 2008, and debtors and banks came under severe pressure. In Latvia and other countries with rigid exchange rate regimes, the prevailing exchange rate was increasingly questioned. The governments — partly within the realm of IMF/EU arrangements, partly on their own initiative — adopted extremely tight austerity policies (Becker, 2010: 531). This resulted in a deep and sustained decline in GDP. Latvia has been worst affected, with declines in three consecutive years (so far): −4.2 per cent in 2008, −18.0 per cent in 2009, and −0.4 per cent in 2010. In the other Baltic States, the performance was not much better. In Estonia, GDP declined by 5.1 per cent in 2008 and 13.9 per cent in 2009, while in Lithuania GDP fell by 14.7 per cent in 2009. Romania suffered from a GDP decline in both 2009 (−7.1 per cent) and 2010 (−1.9 per cent), while Hungary fared only slightly better (Eurostat, 2011). In other words, these dependent financialized models of accumulation collapsed, and the peripheral financialized economies outside the Eurozone proved to be the most vulnerable part of the European periphery. The mainly export-oriented countries with a relatively low foreign exchange private debt fared better, as they could profit from the depreciation of their currencies. This applied mainly to Poland and the Czech Republic, whose economies were less affected by the crisis than their neighbours (Workie et al., 2009: 96, 101).

The Southern European Eurozone Member States were not immediately strongly affected by a shortage of capital inflows. Likewise, the impact of declining exports on their economic performance was less pronounced than in the more export-oriented countries. It was not until the beginning of 2010 that these countries became severely affected via the credit channel. Starting with Greece, they came under increasing pressure from financial capital. Greece was particularly vulnerable due to high levels of public debt and the manipulation of official deficit figures. This was taken as a starting point for increasing spreads and the degradation of credit ratings. Interestingly, the Southern European countries were not homogeneous regarding their deficit data: for example, in relative terms, Spanish public debt was considerably below average. As such, increasing public deficits were the effect rather than the cause of the economic crisis. All three economies — Portugal, Spain, and Greece — had in common structural trade deficits, current account deficits, and low taxes of around 20 per cent as a proportion of GDP (Švihlíková, 2010: 99). This made them structurally dependent on capital inflows and vulnerable to speculative attacks. The social democratic governments of these countries were confronted with increasing credit costs and strong pressure from banks, the European Commission, and governments of the core of the EU to implement austerity policies. As expected, this led to a reduction in internal demand and a deepening recession. According to Eurostat (2011), with a negative growth rate of 4.2 per cent, Greece faced the strongest economic decline in Europe in 2010.

Active extraversion and productive accumulation in the European core

Neo-mercantilist countries, above all Germany, were strongly affected by the decline of exports when the crisis started. This indirectly affected those countries dependent (via exports) on the German economy (Mazzocchi, 2010: 261). However, neo-mercantilist economies already showed signs of recovery in the second half of 2009. In the case of Germany, growing exports to China were important (F.A.Z., 2010: 11). However, German exports to Europe should not be underestimated: the share of exports to the EU-27 declined only slightly from 64.1 per cent to 60.3 per cent between 1995 and 2010; however, it should be noted that the geographical composition of these exports underwent significant changes. The share of the Central and Eastern European countries increased from 6 to 11 per cent of total exports, whereas the share of the old EU-15 declined from 58 to 48 per cent of total exports (Goldberg, 2011: 25). Due to austerity policies in the European periphery but also in the UK, a deepening of the crisis in these countries is to be expected, and this will have implications for accumulation strategies in neo-mercantilist countries. Although exports temporarily recovered, the limits of this strategy became visible in 2011 when the economic recovery came to an end. It seems unlikely that the minor share of extra-EU exports alone will provide a basis for sustainable development of the German economy (cf. Lehndorff, 2011).

Asymmetric interaction supported by specific institutional configurations

The national configurations of the wage relation in combination with the Europeanized monetary relation provided a basis for an asymmetrical interaction of two types of regimes of accumulation in the core and the periphery of Europe. The crisis demonstrated that the limits of the regimes of accumulation, based on a specific interaction of different regimes of accumulation and supported by a specific territoriality of structural forms, had been reached. On the surface, financialized accumulation seems no longer viable due to excess indebtedness in the periphery. This implies that the financialized regimes of accumulation characterised by passive outward-orientation and the neo-mercantilist models linked to them have reached their limits. Primarily export-oriented regimes of accumulation are clearly affected by the structural crisis of the highly financialized economies; moreover, the crisis has demonstrated that earlier financialization postponed problems of over-accumulation only temporarily (Becker & Jäger, 2010). The responses to this structural crisis are analysed in the following section.

Responses to the crisis

The financial sector was at the core of anti-crisis policies in the EU. At the beginning of the crisis, responses consisted mainly of huge national rescue measures that were directed towards the individual Member States' domestic financial sector. Very exclusive circles, consisting of high-level representatives of the central banks, and the ministries of finance and major banks, took the decisions on the rescue packages for the banks within an extremely short time. These packages showed some diversity across different countries but they generally included rather mild conditions for banks (Weber & Schmitz, 2010). The problem of inflated financial assets and the structural over-indebtedness of a part of the banking sector and private debtors was not tackled. Thus the re-regulation of the financial sector was restricted to minor changes, and by and large the status quo remained unchanged (Weber & Redak, 2010; and Troost, 2011). In consequence, the appearance of normal activity was sustained but the financing of productive activities came under pressure (Toporowski, 2010a: 31), not least because national fiscal stimulus packages turned out to be much lower compared to the financial rescue packages and guarantees (cf. European Central Bank, 2009: 77; Watt & Nikolova, 2009: 12).

In the case of Central and Eastern European countries characterized by dependent financialization, a modest fiscal stimulus was never proposed by the EU. On the contrary, the expansion of credit to EU Member States that faced troubles was based on a stronger supervision (together with the IMF), and on the forced implementation of extreme austerity policies. The main aim of the European Commission and Western European governments was to sustain the exchange rate, for this was in the interest of Western banks active in the region. A devaluation of the currency would have implied a devaluation of their assets, which would have caused severe problems for servicing debts denominated in foreign currency. For this reason, a so-called ‘internal devaluation’ was proposed. The key element of this strategy was a very restrictive fiscal policy, cutting wages in the public sector, and reducing social spending —pensions were particularly targeted. These measures were intended to reduce the demand for imports and improve the current account in order to sustain the short-term ability to pay. This was partially achieved, although at the cost of aggravated structural economic problems (Becker, 2010: 530).

In 2010, these patterns were passed on to the Eurozone periphery, and substantial rescue packages for the whole Eurozone were developed in order to avoid sovereign debt crises. The German government hesitated to support these measures, and against French opposition Germany obtained the inclusion of the IMF for so-called rescue packages for countries of the Eurozone (Mazzocchi, 2010: 282) — as had already been the case for Central and Eastern European Member States (Hungary, Latvia, and Romania). In all these rescue mechanisms, the emphasis on tough austerity policies has been reaffirmed, and programmes for individual countries have been complemented by more permanent rescue mechanisms.

First, an IMF/EU austerity programme was applied to Greece, which was tightened further in 2011. Ireland and Portugal followed in 2010 and 2011. In sharp contrast to common expectations, the Euro had not prevented severe financial problems: on the contrary, it deepened the crisis because it made an adequate monetary response to the crisis, e.g. in the form of a national devaluation, impossible. In addition, the European Central Bank (ECB) — within the current setting of monetary regulation — does not serve as a true lender of last resort to states, which technically converts debt denominated in Euros into external debt. Hence, the response took an alternative form by implementing austerity policies. ECB interventions and European guarantees helped to prevent losses for creditors, many of them major banks located at the core of the Eurozone. The so-called private sector involvement in a second major package for Greece, which was passed at the end of July 2011, is fairly minor and does not reduce the Greek debt substantially (this is still the case after the March 2012 restructuring of the debt). The programme does not address the underlying structural problems of the peripheral Greek economy and it does not solve the problem of excess indebtedness which resulted from peripheral financialization. Thus there has been a postponement rather than resolution of these issues (Becker, 2011).

The austerity measures which are contained in the programmes for Greece, Ireland, and Portugal focus on wage reductions, public expenditure cuts, and the so-called flexibilization of the wage relation. In addition, the European Commission and the IMF have pressed for an extended privatization programme in Greece and Portugal (IMF, 2010a: 4; IMF, 2010b: 24; European Commission, 2011; IMF, 2011a: 3; IMF, 2011b: 47). Thus, the EU/IMF measures are based on neoclassical economics. They have deepened the recession in the countries that have applied the programmes so far (Eurostat, 2011), and the prolonged recession clearly has affected the budget negatively. As the European Commission (2011: 19) admits, tax revenues remained below expectations. The public debt/GDP ratio continued to grow strongly in 2010 (OECD, 2010), which is unsurprising given weak tax revenues and a falling GDP. These trends continued in 2011.

The European Commission (2011: 10) claims that Greek growth should be ‘primarily driven by external trade’ over the medium term. Given the extremely weak manufacturing sector and the total absence of industrial policies, this is at best wishful thinking. In spite of extremely weak domestic demand and the severe recession, the current account deficit still amounted to 10.6 per cent of GDP in 2010 (European Commission, 2011: 8). The Irish trajectory is different, but not better. In Ireland, the problem is not the current account, but the collapse of the highly financialized regime of accumulation. Due to the nationalization of the banking sector's losses, Irish public debt has increased more rapidly than in any other EU Member State — in 2010 the public deficit amounted to 32.2 per cent of GDP (OECD, 2010). The adjustment programme for Ireland is clearly not geared towards dealing with the real roots of Ireland's crisis.

In summer 2011, the crisis of the peripheral countries started to spread to Spain and Italy. Due to the visible conflicts in the Italian government and the weakening of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, pressures increased and the Italian government passed two austerity programmes within weeks. For the second programme, the Italian government was particularly pressured by the ECB (Polidori, 2011: 4). After infighting, the Italian government passed a second austerity package with severe budget cuts, changes in the pension system, and a weakening of nationwide collective bargaining agreements on questions of hiring and firing (Griseri, 2011). In Italy, the structural weakening of the trade unions is a central feature of the austerity package again (and also in other peripheral countries; see also Rodrigues & Reis on Portugal in this special issue). At the time of writing (March 2012), pressure is growing on Spain's government, with the same prescriptions yet again being insisted upon.

The radicalization of neoliberalism through the partial shift of the wage relation to the European level

In spite of the failures of these programmes, their contents are to be institutionalized throughout the Eurozone. This indicates that the debt crisis is only a pretext for the radicalization of neoliberal policies. These policies are mainly targeted at the destruction of the welfare state and at strategically weakening the labour movement. The change of the wage relation is at the very heart of the EU/IMF programmes, and through this a partial shift of the wage relation to the European level has been implemented. While, until the crisis, the wage relation had been the only structural form still mainly organized at the level of the nation-state, this has changed during the crisis. Wage policies, and social spending as part of the wage relation, have become regulated to an important extent at the European level for the peripheral countries suffering problems in the Eurozone. This seems to be the role model for income policies at the European level, and hence transforms the wage relation substantially.

A first step towards consolidation of this transformation was an agreement on the creation of an emergency aid mechanism for Eurozone countries facing a severe debt crisis, passed in May 2010 by the Eurozone Member States in cooperation with the IMF. With this, part of the responsibility for the austerity policy is supposed to be deflected to the IMF. This implies an abandonment of external autonomy by the EU Member States, and shows the global political orientation of the EU. This temporary arrangement will be replaced by a permanent one in 2013, namely: ‘The granting of any financial assistance will be made subject to strict conditionality’ (European Council, 2011: 21) (see below for more on this). Voting in the European Stability Mechanism will be according to the capital share of the respective Member State (ibid.: 23).

A number of initiatives aimed at imposing constraints on fiscal, wage, and social policies have already been passed or are presently on the drawing board. They range from a further tightening of the Stability and Growth Pact to monitoring macroeconomic policies in the framework of an ‘Excessive Imbalance Procedure’, and fiscal policies in the realm of the so-called ‘European Semester’. The Fiscal Compact is particularly important in this respect. As the UK and the Czech Republic had refused to participate in the initiative, the form of an inter-state treaty was chosen: thus, the Fiscal Compact will be formally outside the system of EU treaties. It was signed on 2 March 2012, but still has to be ratified by national parliaments. One of its key provisions is the commitment to entrench an extremely rigid rule on public deficits, modelled on the German Schuldenbremse (‘debt brake’), in national legislation (and preferably in constitutional law). The Fiscal Compact also seeks the reduction of public debt levels that are deemed to be excessive, and a much more automatic way of imposing sanctions on states that do not comply with the fiscal benchmarks (European Council, 2012). In this way, national parliaments would be disempowered to an even greater extent in the crucial field of budget policies than they have been up to now (Klatzer & Schlager, 2011: 63).

In a further initiative, the introduction of an economic governance of the Eurozone — a so-called ‘Euro Plus Pact’ — was drafted. This pact particularly focuses on restrictive wage policies and intervention in the pension systems (European Council, 2011: 16), and aims at lowering the costs of the public pensions systems — which are an important element of the wage relation because they are deferred wages. This is a radicalization of the EU attack on the public pension systems (cf. Lechevalier, 2011b on policies so far), since the privatized pension system has been discredited by the crisis. Thus, the European Commission does not promote the capitalized pension as openly as in the past, but concentrates on wearing down the public pension systems (Lordon, 2011).

Many of the envisaged austerity measures will affect the expenditure side, especially at the level of the Member States. This will dampen domestic demand even more (Eicker-Wolf & Himpele, 2011). The rule-based policies of the Schuldenbremse dovetail perfectly with German neo-mercantilism and the bias against the welfare state, and it implies a self-disempowerment of the national parliaments — it would be extremely difficult for more progressive parliamentary majorities to reverse such a constitutional clause. Neoliberal fiscal policies are becoming deeply entrenched, for Eurozone-wide constitutional limitations on public debt would dramatically reduce the size of relatively autonomous policy spaces. The Schuldenbremse does not —contrary to the affirmations of Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy — deal with the roots of the crisis.

Social forces behind the radicalization of neoliberalism in Europe

As noted above, the European Commission and the governments of the dominant EU Member States have been utilizing the crisis as a smokescreen for furthering and radicalizing their neoliberal agenda. The proposals for enhancing EU economic governance mechanisms follow the logic of neoliberal rule-based policy making and permanent austerity, and they systematically disempower parliaments and shield elite policy making even more effectively from popular pressures (cf. Klatzer & Schlager, 2011). Many of the proposed changes have been promoted particularly by the German government, and the new governance mechanisms have been characterized as a ‘Berlin consensus’ (Cassen, 2010). However, we need to remain aware of how the strengthened strategic selectivity in favour of capital that is inscribed into the structure of European governance, with the European Commission's disciplinary function at its core, is also of importance. This alerts us, from a Gramscian perspective, to why all these changes in the structural forms, particularly in the wage relation and its partial shift to the European level, ought to be analysed by looking at the social forces behind the scenes as well. For instance, most recent studies indicate that German productive capital is strengthened by the crisis and is among the most influential social powers in formulating anti-crisis policies in Europe (cf. van der Pijl et al., 2011).

As such, the aforementioned strategic selectivity has become even more biased in favour of capital, which — given the nature of Germany's regime of accumulation — includes the large financial conglomerates that are major creditors of the periphery, too. Hence, although detailed empirical studies are still missing, the radicalization of neoliberalism seems (unsurprisingly) to be supported by ‘finance’. Duménil & Lévy (2004: 207) use this term to refer to an amalgam of large productive and financial capital which tends to have a much shorter time horizon than traditional financial capital. This can be understood as an alliance between the dominant capital fractions of Germany and the productive core of the EU with capital fractions that participate in highly financialized activities, for two good reasons:

The deepening of the crisis not only weakens labour, but also strengthens the power of capital in general, and

The anti-crisis policy is mainly focused on the interests of the financial sector (cf. Toporowski, 2010b: 34, 60).

Thus the neoliberal regulation of competition in general, and the financial sector in particular, which both favour capital in Europe, remains unchanged (cf. Buch-Hansen & Wigger, 2011). A key consequence has been the weakening and even destruction of smaller competitors and therefore the further centralization of capital.

Conclusion

Dealing with integration in crisis and the interaction of varieties of capitalism in Europe requires a theoretical approach which is able to understand the dynamics of capitalist economies as such. We have proposed here using a modified regulationist approach, which has enabled us not just to distinguish more clearly between different regimes of accumulation but also to analyse the interaction of European capitalisms and their regulation at different spatial scales. Against this background, European economic integration is understood as an unfolding division of labour between primarily financialized and primarily export-oriented economies. Most of the financialized economies were dependent on imports of goods and capital whereas core exporting economies, especially the German one, exported goods and provided credits which financed the escalating current account deficits of the last decade. The establishment of the Eurozone cemented uneven economic development trajectories in Europe and facilitated debt-driven growth and the emergence of enormous imbalances in the EU (see also in this special issue Rodrigues & Reis on uneven development, and Ebenau on the wider theoretical implications).

In the present crisis, the tensions inside the EU have reached breaking point, meaning that the European integration project is in a structural crisis as well. However, this crisis has evolved in an uneven way: states in the core have been more successful in shoring up their past regimes of accumulation than the peripheral ones. Moreover, decision making at the EU level has clearly favoured major corporations originating from the core countries. Both at the EU and the national level, economic and social policy making has been thoroughly de-parliamentarized, which accentuates the imbalance of power between capital and labour. As such, the dominant economic and social policies can be characterized as a radicalization of neoliberalism, which includes a partial spatial shift of the wage relation to the European level. The monetary constraint has been systematically invoked in order to impose austerity policies, either via maintaining the exchange rate (Central and Eastern Europe) or through staying within the Eurozone. The modified regulationist approach has allowed us to link the analysis of social forces with their role in the transformation and the partial territorial shifting of structural forms. The main social forces, above all German productive capital and finance in Europe, seek to restore as much as possible of the pre-crisis accumulation models, to radicalize neoliberal policies, and to weaken trade unions and other progressive social forces. In addition, the ongoing changes of EU economic governance aim at entrenching neoliberal rule-based policy-making mechanisms even more deeply, thereby cementing the power of capital. The current anti-crisis policies will lead to a deepening of the crisis because they do not solve, but exacerbate, the contradictions of the regimes of accumulation in Europe.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Ian Bruff, Jane Hardy, and Laura Horn as well as two anonymous referees for very helpful comments. Research for this paper was supported by funds from the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Anniversary Fund, project number: 13621).

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