scholarly journals Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union as an Instrument of Fiscal Policy Coordination in the European Union

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamil Kotliński

The aim of this study is to assess the Treaty on Stability, Coordinationand Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union as an instrument fiscalpolicy coordination and identify some of the consequences that potentially carriesits use. All EU-members conduct independent fiscal policies, regardless of whetherthey are members of the euro zone or not. It is now known that one of the immediatecauses of the crisis in part the euro zone countries was permanent crossingfiscal convergence criteria as a result of an erroneous and irresponsible fiscalpolicy. Used so far forms of coordination of fiscal policies were too weak to preventthe destabilization of the Member States' public finances. The crisis has becomethe impetus for build deeper integration in the area of fiscal policy. Treaty onStability, Coordination and Management, called briefly Fiscal Compact or TSCG,is another instrument of fiscal policy coordination in the European Union. In largepart it is a repetition and a little evolution of the Stability and Growth Pact. Thisstudy indicated some disadvantages of the Fiscal Compact, what has the potentialto lead to its inefficiency. These are: reference to the structural balance, which isa relatively small transparency budgetary rule for the public opinion and becauseof the existence of several competing methods for its calculation; the Treaty providesfor the possibility of "extraordinary circumstances" and does not specify theterm balanced budget, which is a softening of fiscal discipline and opens opportunitiesfor political bargaining; financial penalties imposed on overdebt governmentswill not improve their situation. The Treaty on Stability, Management and Coordination does not constitute a breakthrough in the coordination of fiscal policiesin the European Union.

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
LB ◽  
JHR

In between the writing of this editorial and the publication of this issue of EuConst, the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union, in everyday parlance the ‘Fiscal Compact’, will have been signed by the representatives of the governments of the contracting parties — the member states of the European Union minus the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic. The Fiscal Compact is intended to foster budgetary discipline, to strengthen the coordination of economic policies and to improve the governance of the euro area.


Author(s):  
Jean-Paul Keppenne

The Treaty on European Union (TEU) provides, in its Article 3(4), that ‘[t]he Union shall establish an economic and monetary union whose currency is the euro’. This Economic Monetary Union (EMU) finds its origin in the Treaty of Maastricht of 7 February 1992. As part of this EMU, the core provisions framing the economic policy coordination of the Union are included in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) amongst the other internal Union policies. Consequently, the so-called ‘Community method’ fully applies in this field.


Equilibrium ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 73-91
Author(s):  
Bernadeta Baran

Stability and Growth Pact is the main rule-based framework for the coordination of national fiscal policies in the economic and monetary union (EMU). It was established to safeguard sound public finances, an important requirement for EMU to function properly. Member states had a lot of determination before setting up a monetary union (nominal criteria were a condition to adopt common currency). In the next years, coordination of fiscal policy was not so successful. In many countries, revenues were temporarily boosted by tax-rich activity, while they didn’t restrict their expenditures. In most countries fiscal policy was pro-cyclical (not anti-cyclical) and they didn’t achieve their MTO. Financial crisis has sharpened budgetary problems in member states and showed the weakness of coordination rules.


Author(s):  
Eugenia Dumitriu Segnana ◽  
Alberto de Gregorio Merino

The Council of the European Union (EU) occupies a central place in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), even more so than in any other Union policies. It exercises in this area a variety of roles going from a forum for coordination of national policies to legislative functions and executive powers. The different crises that affected the Union and in particular the euro area in the last ten years have strengthened its prominent position, in no small part due to the Council’s ownership by the Member States. Alongside the Council, the Euro Group, which is presided by a fixed-term president, has developed itself as the informal forum where Ministers from the Member States whose currency is the euro discuss matters of common interest. Its role has been decisive, in particular in the Cypriot and Greek crisis, which could have put into question the very existence of the euro area as a whole.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-237
Author(s):  
László Andor

The article provides a critical assessment of how the Economic and Monetary Union was designed, implemented and reformed in the European Union and discusses the risks of a slow-motion reform process. It is argued that the fact that the euro area economy has recovered in the last few years has become a source of complacency and delays. In particular, powerful forces continue to downplay the importance of systemic reconstruction and the risk of disintegration remains high despite the relative tranquillity of markets in the 2014–2018 period. Finally, the article evaluates competing paradigms about the eurozone crisis and the pros and cons of fiscal capacity building.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (22) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Luengo Escalonilla Lucía Vicent Valverde

<p> </p><p>The article reflects about the viability and implications of the Economic and Monetary Union from a Southern periphery of the European Union perspective, especially that of the Spanish economy. The argument is developed through two ideas: a) euro zone’s reconfiguration carried out by community leaders has preserved and also has sharpened imbalances and asymmetries that triggered the economic crisis, b) the debate on how to overcome it contains and transcends the dilemma that arises from being  part of the European Monetary area, or not.</p><p> </p>


Author(s):  
Richard Griffiths

Twenty years ago, amid a great fanfare of enthusiasm, the Treaty of Maastricht created the European union and inaugurated the process for creating a single European currency for most of the then members (except the UK and Sweden, and later Denmark, that were given a temporary exemption) and all future members. Twenty years later, the anniversary of the treaty passed almost unnoticed (European Policy Centre, 2012). On that day, however, the impact of the treaty was never far from the headlines, as had also been the case for almost every day over the previous months. The Lehman brothers bankruptcy in September 2008 not only triggered a financial crisis that threatened to engulf the world, but it set in motion a series of shocks that have since reverberated through the Euro-area. It is fair to say that the crisis-management has not been an example of stream-lined efficiency, and there are lessons to be learned from that experience.However, the development of the Euro, and the crisis that has subsequently engulfed it, holds lessons in another direction. The European Union has long been held as a model, or an inspiration, for other experiments in regional cooperation and integration, including Mercosul, ASEAN and SADC. The model embodied an sequence of steps leading to ‘ever closer union’ that moved from a free trade area through a customs union and a single market and culminated in economic and monetary union. With the signing and implementation of the Treaty of Maastricht, the European Union had embarked on the penultimate step in this progression. But only half of it – a monetary union without a fiscal union. The Euro-crisis has now called that achievement into question and, in the process, undermined the authority of those espousing a European route towards closer integration, both for themselves as well as for other nations. As a convinced federalist, myself, I would not recommend abandoning the European example altogether, but if there is a lesson to be learned from this sorry episode, it is this: “if you are going to do it, do not do it this way”.This article examines the European experience with economic and monetary union from three perspectives – the design, the implementation and the management of the euro – before exploring the implications of the current crisis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-185
Author(s):  
Leone Niglia

Abstract The European Union is undergoing a structural transformation—a regression from integration through law as an anti-hegemonic project of equal membership to a condition in which member state orders, under a transformed European Union law, gravitate around unequal relations of subordination. Alongside the surveillance mechanisms that constrain the member states to conform to the requirements of the Economic and Monetary Union are private law arrangements (the “memoranda of understanding” qua “contracts”) that equally, and with greater force, produce subordination. Adopting a critical comparative-historical approach, this Article delves into Europe’s collective legal memory, and the past of colonial relations, to make intelligible the deployment of the memoranda contracts whose harsh terms have been dramatically changing the condition of the “debtor countries” for the worse; in the arcana of private law lies the truth about the changing condition of sovereign power in contemporary Europe and about the potential to change direction and counter the “jurisdomination” turn.


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