The Bureaucratic Politics of Germany’s First Greek Bailout Package
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Abstract
The bureaucratic politics of the German decision to bailout Greece reveal that policy proposals from the Office of the Federal Chancellery and the Federal Ministry of Finance to cope with the crisis in Greece stood to benefit those specific ministries. Centered on a national/supranational cleavage, policy debates in the second Angela Merkel government revolved around whether the European Union should be delegated more power in terms of broader Eurozone macroeconomic governance. Angela Merkel rejected broader treaty revisions insisting on strict adherence to the Stability and Growth Pact and the large-scale participation of the imf. Conversely, Federal Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble opposed imf involvement and advocated for increased eu competency including support for the French proposal to institutionalize the Eurogroup. The policy positions of these two organizational actors remained deeply conditioned by organizational interests, rather than partisan or ideological divides over conceptions of “European Unity.”
Contributor Notes
Luke B. Wood served as an Instructor of Political Science and European Politics at Indiana University’s Department of Political Science and Institute for European Studies from 2010-2015. Wood currently retains a research position in the Office of Ambassador Lee A. Feinstein, Dean of the School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington. Wood’s primary research examines trends in the postwar domestic and foreign policies of advanced industrialized democracies in Western Europe and the United States with a specialization in postunification German politics and foreign affairs. His most recent article, “On the Prospect of an Emergent German Strategic Doctrine of Mass Atrocity Prevention” is forthcoming in Perspectives on Europe.