Recent research indicates that bottom-up EU politicization shapes top-down EU policy enforcement, yet leaves open questions on the pervasiveness of these effects in policy areas that are depoliticized by design. This contribution asks how societal EU politicization shaped the enforcement of the Stability and Growth Pact up until its COVID-19-induced suspension. It employs causal process-tracing to analyse fiscal rule enforcement under varying levels and constellations of EU politicization. Results indicate that enforcement by the European Commission is shaped both by mandate and exogenous pressures created by politicization and the reputational concerns they induce. Moreover, politicization has gradually pushed the Commission towards increasingly flexible enforcement of EU fiscal rules. These conclusions are relevant because they show that politicization permeates even the most depoliticized areas of EU policy. Additionally, they suggest that the SGP's COVID-19-induced suspension can be understood as a continuation of existing enforcement strategies.

中文翻译：

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走钢丝：政治化和委员会对 SGP 的执行*

最近的研究表明，自下而上的欧盟政治化塑造了自上而下的欧盟政策执行，但对于这些影响在被设计去政治化的政策领域的普遍性留下了悬而未决的问题。这篇文章询问了欧盟社会政治化如何影响《稳定与增长公约》的执行，直到其因 COVID-19 而被暂停。它采用因果过程追踪来分析在欧盟政治化的不同层面和星座下的财政规则执行情况。结果表明，欧盟委员会的执法受到政治化所产生的授权和外生压力及其引发的声誉担忧的影响。此外，政治化逐渐推动欧盟委员会更加灵活地执行欧盟财政规则。这些结论是相关的，因为它们表明政治化甚至渗透到欧盟政策中最非政治化的领域。此外，他们建议 SGP 的 COVID-19 引起的暂停可以理解为现有执法策略的延续。