Fiscal Relations Within The European Union

This paper evaluates reforms in the structure of intergovernmental relations in Eastern Europe since the breakup of the Soviet Union, focusing on eight recent EU accession countries: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. It reviews each country's response to the economic and political upheavals of the immediate post-Soviet era and their gradual convergence on a common "eastern European model" of intergovernmental relations.

The book tackles a key issue for the European Union: Fiscal Federalism. It evaluates the applicability of this theoretical perspective for the EU. Conversely, it pinpoints ways in which the diversity of existing fiscal settings and organisations, both at national and European levels, can throw light on the theory. The study analyses two of the most important European policies: Cohesion Policy and the Stability and Growth Pact. It compares the episode of German Unification to the 2004 European Enlargement. It pioneers a cross-country analysis of the various national fiscal settings. Finally, it highlights the close links between the dynamics of decision-making related to the main budgetary choices and the integration process. The questions raised are crucial in the current context of economic and institutional uncertainty: How should we apprehend the Cohesion Policy, the main expression of European solidarity? How can the coordination of national fiscal policies be improved? How are European countries and their regions organised in fiscal and budgetary terms? What lessons can the EU draw from its own fiscal past and from that of its Member States? Over and above the originality of the answers provided by the authors, the book suggests that it would be difficult to take the integration process further without first clarifying what Europe can, should or wants to do.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of national fiscal policies in the European Union and in the European Monetary Union. Adopting a critical perspective, the book offers a deep insight into the consequences of the current strategy of national fiscal policies on economic activity.

The pace of economic integration amongst European Union (EU) member states has accelerated considerably during the past decade, highlighted by the process of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Many aspects of the EU's apparatus, however, have failed to evolve in order to meets these new challenges. This book explores the issue of fiscal federalism within the context of EU integration from theoretical, historical, policy and global perspectives. It contrasts the pace of integration amongst EU member states with the failure of financial and administrative apparatus to evolve to encompass fiscal federalism, i.e. the development of a centralised budgetary system. This impressive collection, with contributions from a range of internationally respected authors, shall interest students and researchers involved with European economics and economic integration. Its accessible style will also make it extremely useful to policy-makers and professionals for whom European economic integration is a daily topic of conversation.

Combining theoretical and empirical analysis this book explores the core issues of fiscal federalism in the European context.

Following the financial and public debt crisis, the EU's Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has been under intense political scrutiny. The measures adopted in response to the crisis have granted additional powers to the EU (and national) authorities, the exercise of which can have massive implications for the economies of the Member States, financial institutions and, of course, citizens. The following questions arise: how can we hold accountable those institutions that are exercising power at the national and EU level? What is the appropriate level, type and degree of accountability and transparency that should be involved in the development of the EU's governance structures in the areas of fiscal and economic governance and the Banking Union? What is the role of parliaments and courts in holding those institutions accountable for the exercise of their duties? Is the revised EMU framework democratically legitimate? How can we bridge the gap between the citizens - and the institutions that represent them - and those institutions that are making these important decisions in the field of economic and monetary policy? This book principally examines the mechanisms for political and legal accountability in the EMU and the Banking Union. It examines the implications that the reforms of EU economic governance have had for the locus and strength of executive power in the Union, as well as the role of parliaments (and other political fora) and courts in holding the institutions acting in this area accountable for the exercise of their tasks. It further sets out several proposals regarding transparency, accountability, and legitimacy in the EMU.

This is an extensive study concerned with the potential effects of fiscal policy on financial markets in the EU. It takes into account the gradual liberalization of capital movements through Western Europe & the framework of the European Monetary System.