Page - 87 - in Austrian Law Journal, Volume 1/2015

ALJ 1/2015 Authoritarian Liberalism 87 Some Southern Member States get the raw end of the deal. They do not benefit from Europe’s arrogation of delegated authority. Under such unequal conditions it makes sense for them to act in a manner as though the public power that rules them were illegal and illegitimate. There is no other alternative left for the Southern Member States than to alter an equilibrium in which they have no bargaining power. They can only affect it still by threatening to leave the Euro Zone. While this would make an end to all rescue credits from ESM and all OMT support from the ECB it would also reintroduce the specter of the collapse of the Euro. While such a scenario is quite regrettable, it is to be feared that defection is the only leverage left to these states to moti- vate Northern States to rethink and to renegotiate the project of Economic and Monetary Union.