CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2026
| Author | Grignaschi, Giancarlo |
|---|---|
| Title | Loyalty without Integration: Macroprudential Governance and the Eurozone Periphery |
| Summary | This dissertation investigates a central puzzle in the political economy of European integration: why do National Competent Authorities (NCAs) in Eurozone small host countries remain loyal to the current macroprudential framework, despite the unique challenges it imposes on them? Drawing on a combination of qualitative data and comparative analysis of five Central-Eastern European countries – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Slovenia – the study addresses the enduring asymmetries between core and periphery in EU financial governance. Through the novel concept of the Macroprudential Triangle, this dissertation frames the tension between three competing objectives: the resilience of credit institutions, the management of cross-border spillovers, and the adequate provision of credit to the real economy. The core hypothesis advanced and tested in this work posits that the high degree of autonomy embedded within macroprudential governance enables the peripheral NCAs to to break down the challenges of the Triangle into politically manageable components to their advantage. This autonomy stems from three mutually reinforcing sources: decentralised decision-making, institutional prominence of macroprudential departments within national central banks, and limited supranational constraints. Such a configuration allows NCAs to strategically pursue domestic financial stability, maintain continuity with pre-crisis supervisory practices, and gain access to a transnational epistemic community – all without facing meaningful interference from supranational actors. By combining a core-periphery perspective with constructivist epistemology, the dissertation reconceptualises macroprudential governance not merely as a technical compound of structures and processes for financial regulation, but as a contested political arena shaped by perceptions, strategic agency, and institutional narratives. The findings challenge prevailing assumptions about supranationalisation and the capacity to produce European public goods, showing how a suboptimal and asymmetric framework can still generate loyalty when it provides sufficient space for national control. In doing so, the dissertation contributes to broader debates on European integration, regulatory governance, and the politics of financial stability. |
| Supervisor | Dóra Piroska |
| Department | Political Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2026/grignaschi_giancarlo.pdf |
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