Fiscal Regulation of the EU

Abstract

The fourth chapter commences with the background of the euro crisis and its impact on the general institutional set-up of European economic governance. The chapter shows how the EU changed the instruments of its fiscal integration as a result of the threat emerging from the euro crisis that out broke in 2010. While in the ‘pre-threat’ governance stage, it relied mainly on weak regulation of the fiscal policies of the member states, in the ‘post-threat’ economic governance period, this regulation instrument was significantly strengthened, in the form of the European Semester, a cycle of monitoring the fiscal and economic policies of the member states. This introduced the possibility of sanctions for non-compliance with the EU’s rules and recommendations under its two procedures of excessive (macroeconomic) imbalance (EIP) and excessive deficit (EDP). In addition, the new instrument of fiscal integration began to be implemented—quasi-fiscalization, in the form of lending institutions, such as the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

Next Generation EU: Legal Structure and Constitutional Consequences

“…67 Be that as it may, thanks to NGEU the EU's fiscal union presents feature which are akin to those of mature federal regimes worldwide. 68 A. Existing legal bases…”

Comparative Fiscal Federalism and the Post‐Covid EU: Between Debt Rules and Borrowing Power

“…A crucial lesson from comparative fiscal federalism is that multilevel governance systems managed to develop an autonomous fiscal capacity at the central level only once they developed a significant tax capacity, i.e., access to taxes that produce large revenues, such as an income tax and a valueadded tax. On the one hand, such fiscalization process leading to the emergence of a federal fiscal union with taxing powers (Woźniakowski, 2022) would imply that significant fiscal powers are transferred to the centre which, thus, would no longer depend on national transfers. On the other hand, in federations, the empowerment of the centre does not significantly impair the spending power of the constituent units, but rather the fiscal sovereignty of the centre coexists with the fiscal sovereignty of the units (Zgaga, 2023a).…”

No Borrowing Without Taxing? Fiscal Solidarity of Next Generation EU in Light of the American Experience

“…In recent years, we have witnessed significant, even paradigmatic, changes in how the EU manages its own fiscal sphere (potentially leading to the creation of EU taxes) on the one hand, and how it influences the fiscal sovereignty of its member states, on the other (Zgaga, 2023). These two distinct processes have been dubbed "fiscalization," in my earlier work (Woźniakowski, 2022) and fiscal regulation, respectively. These two instruments of integration-capacity (proceeded by fiscalization) and regulation-should not be confused with each other, even if both represent forms of fiscal integration (cf.…”

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