Investigating the Recovery Strategies of European Union from the Global Financial Crisis

The global financial crisis has affected almost all countries in the world. The crisis has hit European economies unprecedentedly hard and its effects have occurred in two phases. The first phase is the economic recession following the global economic downturn. The second phase is the so-called sovereign debt crisis which started in Greece firstly and then appeared in Ireland and Portugal. Like many other countries and organizations, European Union (EU) has also developed strategies in order to tackle the challenges of the crisis. This paper attempted to investigate the strategic initiatives of EU for the economic recovery in Europe. The results of this investigation show that EU's recovery strategies have been executed in two ways: the preservation of Member States' financial stability and the enhancement of economic governance inside EU. Nevertheless the lack of a political union, in particular the supranational governance of economy policy is delaying the recovery of the EU's economy and causing the contagion of sovereign debt problems in Member States of euro. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility 7th International Strategic Management Conference