Time to come home

When restarting work on reforming the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the Eurogroup should heed the lessons of the pandemic: The ESM has become politically unviable while there is apparently a lot more flexibility within the EU treaties than previously thought. Therefore, this policy brief argues that the old reform plans should be put to one side and the ESM should be reinvented inside the EU legal order if it is to remain relevant. Such a reinvention would create a coherent crisis management framework that would be politically sustainable in the long run.