Introduction

Ever since the SGP had been conceptualised it was clear that the proof of the pudding lay in the eating – i.e. the real policy implementation of the framework was key, not the political noise surrounding its inception. Would Member States conduct their fiscal policies in a cooperative way, conducive to sound public finances and monetary stability – or would the fiscal dimension of EMU put either the Member States or the Pact itself under stress? The first years of the implementation of the SGP put the scheme under some pressure right away, but serious difficulties only occurred a few years into its implementation, after the macroeconomic environment had progressively darkened.

This part of the book offers an analysis of the first nine years of the implementation period, from 1999 until late 2008. It is structured as follows. The first section of Chapter 6 offers a narrative of the SGP implementation in the period 1999–2002. The second section of this chapter analyses this first implementation period by choosing from our theoretical framework and combining the thrust of the domestic and intergovernmental approaches that best suit this episode. The next two chapters assess respectively the SGP crisis in 2003 and the reform period up to 2005 – again providing analytical assessments informed by the four approaches developed in Part I of the book.