Circumventing constraints by internalizing Troika oversight? Italy and the Euro crisis negotiations

With the notable exception of Malta, South European countries were severely hit by the Eurocrisis. In the extant literature, Southern Europe is often presented as a relatively homogeneousgroup of debt-ridden countries with converging preferences on the terms of future integrationsteps. Nonetheless, at a closer look, the ways in which South European countries adjusted toexternal constraints during the 2010-2013 negotiations diverged substantially. Greece,Portugal, Cyprus and (although in an attenuated form) Spain were all subject to directoversight by the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF (the so-called ‘Troika’), whileItaly, in spite of its gargantuan public debt, managed to avoid that. Starting from a discussionof the negotiated responses to the Euro crisis and of South European countries’ stances vis-àvisa number of contested issues emerged during the negotiations, this paper engages with LItheory to suggest that at the height of the Euro crisis Italy managed to avoid external Troikaoversight by internalizing it.