The Ordoliberal EU

This chapter makes a statement based on previous research by the authors, namely that the EU project is based on Germany’s ordoliberal canon. EU’s ordoliberal Treaties are inspired by Germany’s model of capitalism and institutions, which themselves had to be reformed injecting even more austerity and discipline in the co-federated members-states in order to deal with the crisis and keep the EU as a whole being competitive on a global scale. Thus, the chapter shows that it is also the external combined competitive constraint articulated between the EU, China, Japan and the USA that necessitated the introduction of such unprecedented neo-colonial treaties as the Fiscal Compact and the European Semester programme on the part of the European Commission. In order to keep a competitive edge in the global division of labour, the central institutions of the EU have been forced to defend the primacy of Germany in the Eurozone.