What instruments for the European state to be?

ABSTRACT 1: The artcle discusses the contributions to this issue's Forum on "The return of state interventionism". The three papers address this question in rather different ways: through a historical overview of credit instruments used by the state in different historical periods, the paper by Eric Monnet (Monnet 2023); through an analysis of the way in which the stability of the euro system can be guaranteed in today’s European Union, that by Waltraud Schelkle (Schelkle 2023); and by revealing the deeper political meaning of the alteration of financial and fiscal instruments on the part of the state to pursue social and developmental goals, the paper by Daniela Gabor (Gabor 2023). The article dicusses the main insights of each and asks questions that could inform a debate among the three contributions. ABSTRACT 2: The commentary reflects on the switch from fiscal to financial instruments in the pursuit of important social and economic goals on the part of capitalist states, on its causes and risks. The financialization of state action has a number of consequences that raise many questions that are, to some extent, addressed in the commentary: how can the stability of a system so prone to market manias and panics be secured? What are the consequences in terms of the distribution of wealth and power among social classes? How can fundamental infrastructural investments be secured when the indirect financial instruments now preferred are only blunt steering tools? Can financial dominance be escaped without falling prey to fiscal dominance?