Building a hidden investment state? The European Investment Bank, national development banks and European economic governance

Daniel Mertens () and Matthias Thiemann ()
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Daniel Mertens: Institut für Politikwissenschaft - Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
Matthias Thiemann: CEE - Centre d'études européennes et de politique comparée (Sciences Po, CNRS) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: The European Commission's Investment Plan for Europe and the enduring economic crisis has brought state-owned development banks again to the fore of public and scholarly debate in Europe. This article proposes to place these banks' activities and recent institutional co-operation in the context of European integration and assumes a historical perspective on European economic governance and development banking. Most importantly, it argues that the European Investment Bank has become a centre of gravity in long-standing political attempts to increase the investment firepower of the European Union. Based on detailed process-tracing analysis through publicly available data and interview material, the article delineates a gradual process of institutional innovation and network formation that advanced since the late 1980s and culminated in recent post-crisis policy processes. The contemporary visibility of development banking in Europe, we conclude, follows from these and is representative of a nucleus for a – somewhat hidden – European investment state, whose reach and stability, however, is yet to be determined.

Keywords: EIB; EIF; economic governance; European Commission; Investment Plan for Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-01621785
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Published in Journal of European Public Policy, 2019, 26 (1), pp.P. 23-43. ⟨10.1080/13501763.2017.1382556⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01621785

DOI: 10.1080/13501763.2017.1382556

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