THE IMF’S ROLE IN THE RESOLUTION OF THE EUROPEAN SOVEREIGN DEBT CRISIS: A REASSESSMENT

This article reviews Henning (2017) and supplements it with theoretically based empirical research. The choice to comprise the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the reaction to the euro crisis clarifies a deep-rooted and emergent phenomenon in global relations: current worldwide issues are the target of series of overlapping and intersecting entities that have been established at the multilateral, regional, and bilateral levels. The European sovereign debt crisis (2010–2015) portrays the most relevant and prolonged period of partnership between the IMF and a series of regional entities. The euro crisis jeopardized the exclusion of some member economies from the eurozone and disputed the feasibility of the monetary union. The trouble was most serious in the certain crisis economies, where productivity dropped dramatically and unemployment escalated to unexpected levels.