Mind the output gap: the (de-)politicisation of fiscal policy in the EU

This article investigates how efforts to depoliticise fiscal governance in the European Union have paradoxically contributed to its enduring politicisation. In the wake of the sovereign debt crisis, European Union policymakers introduced increasingly technical fiscal rules, centred on complex indicators such as the output gap, to insulate decision-making from political contestation. Yet, as the 2019 Italian output gap controversy illustrates, these very mechanisms became focal points of political conflict. Drawing on theory-testing process tracing, the article shows how technocratic governance imported the instability of expert disagreement into European Union policymaking, generating public scientific controversies. These disputes allowed political actors to contest the rules themselves, blurring the line between technical and political decision-making. The analysis advances the literature by identifying how EU level depoliticisation strategies can generate more politicisation by embedding technical instability in policy areas supposedly considered neutral. This (de-)politicisation feedback loop shows how technocratic governance can perpetuate rather than resolve political conflict.