The EU’s Internal and External Regulatory Actions after the Outbreak of the 2008 Financial Crisis

The 2008 financial crises strongly challenged the European Union, a threat which was even reinforced by the 2010 sovereign credit crisis. Initially, its member states responded to the crisis in an ad hoc and uncoordinated manner. As the crisis persisted, it became clear that the individual responses of Member States had profound consequences on the economies of other Member States. Because of the strong spill-overs between the European economies, there was an enormous benefit in more coordination. Consequently, the EU stepped in. This paper analyzes the EU's actions aimed at plugging regulatory and supervisory gaps in order to prevent future crises from happening, both at the EU level as at the international level through the elevated G20. As a result, the EU's internal supervisory and regulatory framework has been reinforced greatly. Internationally, the EU has been able to coordinate rather successful in advance of the G20 meetings and has consequently been able to steer the debate