Download or read book National Fiscal Governance Reforms Across EU Member States written by Joaquim Ayuso-i-Casals and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recoge: Overview of the information contained in the 2009-2010 SCPs - Type of measures according to the main elements of domestic frameworks - The assessment of domestic fiscal frameworks reforms by the Commission - Annex: Country specific information based on the 2009-2010 SCPs.

Download or read book National Fiscal Governance Reforms Across EU Member States written by and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book National Fiscal Governance Reform Cross EU Member Sates written by Commissione europea and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 55 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reforming Fiscal Governance in the European Union written by Michal Andrle and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-05-21 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Successive reforms have brought many positive elements to the European Union’s fiscal framework. But they have also increased its complexity. The current system involves an intricate set of fiscal constraints, which hampers effective monitoring and public communication. Compliance has also been weak. This note discusses medium-term reform options to simplify the framework and improve compliance. Based on model simulations and practical considerations, it argues for moving to a two-pillar approach, with a single fiscal anchor (public debt-to-GDP) and a single operational target (an expenditure growth rule, possibly with an explicit debt correction mechanism) linked to the anchor.

Download or read book Fiscal Federalism in the European Union and Its Countries written by Clément Vaneecloo and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2006 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Playing by the Rules written by Luc Eyraud and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-03-24 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The paper contributes to the discussions on fiscal governance in Europe. It takes stock of recent reforms, identifies areas for further progress, and discusses a menu of policy options for the medium-term. The issues covered include: (i) the growing complexity of the European framework and ways to simplify it; (ii) the difficulties to measure and implement structural stance indicators; (iii) the challenge of reconciling fiscal sustainability and growth; (iv) the need to enhance coordination in the area of monitoring; and (v) the obstacles to compliance and proposals to strengthen enforcement.

Download or read book Reforming the EU Fiscal Framework written by Mr. Nathaniel G Arnold and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2022-09-05 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The EU’s fiscal framework needs reform. While existing fiscal rules have had some impact in constraining deficits, they did not prevent deficits and debt ratios that have threatened the stability of the monetary union in the past and that continue to create vulnerabilities today. The framework also has a poor track record at managing trade-offs between containing fiscal risks and stabilizing output. Finally, the framework does not provide sufficient tools for EU-wide stabilization. This was most visible during the decade following the euro area sovereign debt crisis, when structurally low real interest rates stretched the policy tools of the European Central Bank (ECB), leading to a persistent undershooting of its inflation target. This paper proposes a new framework based on risk-based EU-level fiscal rules, strengthened national institutions, and a central fiscal capacity. First, risk-based EU-level fiscal rules would link the speed and ambition of fiscal consolidation to the level and horizon of fiscal risks, as identified by debt sustainability analysis (DSA) using a common methodology developed by a new and independent European Fiscal Council (EFC). The 3 percent deficit and 60 percent debt reference values would remain. Second, all member countries would be required to enact medium-term fiscal frameworks consistent with the EU-level rules—that is, to ensure convergence over the medium-term to an overall fiscal balance anchor by setting expenditure ceilings. Independent national fiscal councils (NFCs) would have a much stronger role to strengthen checks and balances at the national level (including undertaking or endorsing macroeconomic projections and performing DSAs to assess fiscal risks). The European Commission (EC) would continue to play its key surveil¬lance role as articulated in the Maastricht Treaty and the EFC would be the center of a peer network of fiscal councils. Third, building on the recent experience with the NextGenerationEU (NGEU), an EU fiscal capacity (FCEU) would improve euro area macroeconomic stabilization and allow the provision of common EU public goods—a task that has become more urgent given the green transition and common security concerns. Central to the proposal is a mutually reinforcing relationship between EU rules and national-level imple¬mentation. Strengthening implementation requires both better national ownership of the rules and their application and greater congruence of national-level frameworks with EU-level rules. The former can only be achieved by rules that convincingly balance the needs of members with the avoidance of negative externali¬ties across members. This argues for a risk-based approach—the first pillar of our proposal. The latter requires a stronger role for significantly upgraded national level frameworks—the second pillar of our proposal.

Download or read book Stability and Growth in Europe written by Antonio Fatás and published by Centre for Economic Policy Research. This book was released on 2003 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fiscal policy framework of the EMU is in a states of crisis. Since the start of EMU, fiscal conditions in some member states have slipped considerably beyond the limits set by the Maastricht Treaty and the Stability and Growth Pact. It is clear that the preventive arm of the Stability and Growth Pact has failed to preclude excessive deficits. There is no shortage of proposals to reform the current fiscal framework in this crisis situation. They range from calls for softening their implementation, and to proposals for closer coordination of national fiscal policies. None of these proposals offers a convincing solution to the problem at the heart of the current crisis: how to balance the need for effective long-run fiscal stability in EMU with the need for short-run flexibility of fiscal policy in the member states. After a detailed analysis of the virtues and defects of the current fiscal framework, this report presents a proposal for reform that addresses this issue. The authors argue that EMU should move away from rigid fiscal rules for annual deficits towards a more judgmental process of monitoring the sustainability of fiscal policies. This approach is guided by three principles: independence, transparency, and legitimacy. Together wit the ability to assess the fiscal situation and outlook of each euro-area member state, they are the keys to designing a framework that provides enough flexibility and, at the same time, can build the required credibility and political support. The authors propose the creation of a Sustainability Council for the EMU, and independent body with the sole statutory task of safeguarding the sustainability of public finances in the euro area. The Sustainability Council regularly and openly reports to the public and the European Parliament its assessment of the member states' fiscal policies, taking into account past performance, current perspectives and the future course of fiscal policies. Its mandate is the counterpart of the ECB's principal task of maintaining price stability. However, the Sustainability Council has no operative role in fiscal policy; it relies solely on the pressure of informed public opinion to discipline national governments. The use of the instruments of fiscal policy is entirely left to the national governments, and the Sustainability Council can only be conceived as a judge of national public finances.

Download or read book EU Fiscal Governance and the Effectiveness of Its Reform written by Alexandre de Streel and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper analyses the reforms of the fiscal governance in the Euroopean Union introduced after the euro crisis. The first section is descriptive and gives a brief overview of the new fiscal governance as modified by the six-pack, the TSCG and the two-pack. The second section is critical and analyses the weaknesses of the original fiscal governance and the effectiveness of the recent reforms. The third section briefly concludes. Originally in 1992, the EU fiscal governance was based on fiscal decentralisation constrained by rules (limits of 3% government deficit and 60% government debt) whose compliance was monitored annually and whose violation are sanctioned (the excessive deficit procedure). The financial solidarity was minimal. The Euro crisis and the high financial instability of some Member States have shown the severe flaws of such governance model: the fiscal rules were sometimes inappropriate and often poorly implemented. Inevitably then, the crisis led to more financial solidarity than expected. To remedy those flaws, the EU fiscal governance has been substantially reformed by the six-pack in 2011, the TSCG in 2012 and the two-pack in 2013. Such reforms, which were probably the only politically feasible, have improved the three components of the governance: on rules, they make the fiscal objectives and limits smarter; on institutions, they improve the quality of data and forecasts needed to apply properly the rules, and ensure a better national ownership; on enforcement, they improve the design and the decision-making process of the sanctions at the EU level and create an national correction mechanism. All of that could still be fine-tuned: the fiscal rules could better differentiate between productive and less productive public investment, a network of the Commission and the newly established national fiscal councils could be set up, and the decision-making process and the criteria used by the Commission in proposing the sanctions could be made more transparent. But more fundamental reforms are needed to ensure the sustainability of the EMU. The legitimacy of the new EU surveillance and sanctions tools should be improved in several ways: explaining better the rationale for the constitutionalization of the fiscal rules, enhancing dialogue between EU and national bodies (economic dialogue ...) as well as among national institutions (parliament, IFCs ..), increasing the EU parliamentary oversight where the Commission power have been enhanced. Other models of governance may also be developed. The sticks of the fiscal governance (sanctions) should be complemented with carrots (financial incentives). More centralisation of fiscal policy could be ensured with the creation of a Eurozone budget to absorb asymmetric macro-economic shocks or the issuance of common Eurobonds. Those reforms may be difficult to agree today, but the risk is that the fatigue of the citizens towards the European Union, of which the economic governance is one of the most visible parts, and the rise of nationalism within the Member States will make any reform even more difficult tomorrow.

Download or read book Redefining European Economic Governance written by Michele Chang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global financial crisis and sovereign debt crisis exposed the inadequacy of European economic governance. Despite the multitude of new mechanisms and institutions that have arisen over the last few years, many contend that economic governance remains inadequate and the EU must integrate even further to calm still-volatile markets. A tension exists between creating effective instruments that will not overstep the authority delegated to an EU that has integrated economically but not politically. Can the EU’s economic governance system satisfy the demands of markets and politics? Relevant issues include the ability of supranational institutions to dictate policy to national governments, the harmonization of economic policies and institutions across Europe, and a substantial increase in the transfer of funds across borders. Can monetary union continue without political union? How will the new institutions alter the distribution of power between EU institutions as well as between member states? This edited volume analyzes the major policy challenges and institutional mechanisms at the EU- and international levels to combat the global financial crisis and the EU’s sovereign debt crisis such as financial integration, fiscal cooperation, and the rising power of the ECB. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of European Integration.

Download or read book Coordination Arrangements Across Government Sub sectors in EU Member States written by Georges Tournemire and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coordination arrangements constitute an essential building block of a budgetary framework. They should ensure that fiscal policy is conducted in a consistent manner across the various public entities and sub-sectors of general government. This dimension has gained in relevance as recent fiscal governance reforms in the European Union, supplemented with the adoption of the fiscal compact, have put a premium on sound coordination in order to reach shared fiscal objectives within each EU Member State. Using information from the Commission fiscal governance database, the note identifies between hard and soft coordination instruments and discusses their respective design and merits. Overall, it is found that subnational government is being equipped with specific fiscal rules in a growing number of Member States. Soft coordination mechanisms for their part are becoming more structured and results-oriented with in particular improved monitoring procedures. The note finally suggests a number of avenues to improve existing coordination mechanisms to integrate further domestic budgetary timelines and ensure a genuine involvement of subnational government within the annual budget cycle.

Download or read book Democracy and Deficits written by Dóra Győrffy and published by Akademiai Kiads. This book was released on 2007 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The persistence of fiscal imbalances in advanced and emerging economies alike belies the expectations of early globalization theorists about a worldwide convergence of macroeconomic policies. Using a political economy perspective the book aims to identify the main factors, which are responsible for this lasting divergence. Based on qualitative and quantitative evidence from the European Union with case studies on Hungary and Sweden, it finds that the level of public trust in the political system and the capacity of the elite for consensus critically affect nationstates' prospects for fiscal sustainability."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book Recent Reforms of Tax Systems in the EU Member States written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The report analyses potential challenges that Member States are currently facing in areas of taxation where policy is expected to have an impact on macroeconomic performance in terms of GDP, employment, fiscal sustainability and may impact macroeconomic stability. The taxation areas under scrutiny also concern the design of national tax policies, which is the responsibility of Member States' governments. The report first examines wide-ranging macroeconomic challenges related to the sustainability of public finance and the growth-friendliness of the tax structure. This examination is based on a systematic review and screening of available quantitative indicators and is augmented by various robustness checks. While the outcome of screening could be regarded as rather mechanical, it allows consistency across countries and helps to frame the policy discussions. This first attempt to identify relevant tax policy challenges needs to be supplemented by country-specific evidence and analysis.

Download or read book Rules and Risk in the Euro Area written by Anna Iara and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The strengthening of national fiscal frameworks, including numerical fiscal rules, has recently been proposed as an important part of the economic governance reform package for the EU. The strength of numerical fiscal rules can be described along the dimensions of their statutory base, the room to revise budgetary objectives, provisions for their monitoring and enforcement, and their media visibility. With a unique data set summarizing the quality of national fiscal rules along these dimensions, we show that stronger fiscal rules in euro area member states reduce sovereign risk. According to our estimates, yield spreads against Germany of countries with relatively weak fiscal rules could be up to 100 basis points lower if they upgraded their numerical fiscal rules. The legal base turns out to be the most important dimension for the perceived effectiveness of the rules. The effectiveness of the correction and enforcement mechanisms turns out to be very important as well, while the role of the bodies in charge of monitoring and enforcing compliance is somewhat smaller. Overall, national fiscal rules are found to be beneficial for market assessments of governments' ability and willingness to timely service debt: they could thus provide an effective way to implement fiscal discipline."--Publication information page.

Download or read book Making Sense of the European Commission s Fiscal Governance Reform Plan written by Lucio R. Pench and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The European Commission's April 2023 proposals for the reform of European Union fiscal governance revolve around the principles of fiscal sustainability and national ownership. While the criterion of sustainability is at the centre of the proposals, its practical implications for the assessment of compliance of national medium-term fiscal-structural plans with the new fiscal rules have been blurred by a proliferation of additional criteria or safeguards. These include a requirement for a country's debt level at the end of the medium-term horizon to be lower than at the beginning. This Policy Brief argues that the fiscal sustainability criterion, which the legislative proposals formulate in broad qualitative terms (public debt being on "a plausibly downward path ... or ... staying at prudent levels") can be operationalised to ensure the objective of de-risking of public debt, ie the eventual removal of situations in which debt poses a high sustainability risk. Specifically, for a plan to satisfy the sustainability criterion, it should ensure that the country in question graduates out of the high-risk category or does not fall into it. It is further argued that the additional criteria or safeguards have limited value added and hamper the overall readability of the proposed reform. This proliferation of criteria should not be taken as compromising the fundamentals of the reform, however: a careful textual and contextual reading of the relevant legal provisions allows for an 'overall assessment' by the Commission and the Council of the medium-term plans submitted by EU countries, in which compliance with the additional safeguards could be given a subordinated role relative to the sustainability criterion. Ideally, a clarification of the methodology for assessing compliance with the debt-sustainability criterion would allow the additional safeguards to be dispensed with. Political concerns lay behind the demand for additional safeguards, but these should be addressed through institutional rather than rule-based solutions. Implementation and enforcement will be critical. This Policy Brief offers proposals to enhance institutional self-commitment to implementation, with reputational consequences for non-implementation.

Download or read book The Role of Reforms and Investments in the EU Fiscal Governance Framework written by and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This briefing paper assesses Commission proposals to monitor reforms and investments in member states through a revised EU fiscal governance framework. Major innovations, such as a key operational role for an expenditure rule, are discussed in relation to the stated objectives, with a focus on social resilience. These innovations are welcome, but we also see a need for engaging national stakeholders to increase loyalty to the policy process.

Download or read book Proposals for a Reform of the EU s Fiscal Rules and Economic Governance written by Sebastian Dullien and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debt-to-GDP ratios are set to rise significantly all over the world as a result of the coronavirus crisis. This will pose a huge challenge for the EU's member states and in particular the euro area countries, because of the strict fiscal rules that apply to them. In a consultation process that began earlier this year, the European Commission is inviting proposals for reforms to the rules. - The IMK advocates a reform focused on appropriate fiscal rules that promote short-term macroeconomic stabilisation and the long-term modernisation of the public capital stock, while still keeping the sustainability of public debt in mind. - We propose an expenditure rule for non-cyclical, non-investment expenditure coupled with a Golden Rule for public investment. As a pragmatic solution, the permissible debt-to-GDP ratio should be increased to 90%, while escape clauses should apply during times of crisis. The proposed rules should replace the EU's current fiscal rules. - The Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure should also be reformed at the same time. As a key part of such a reform, we advocate the establishment of a Macroeconomic Dialogue in order to ensure compliance with the reformed rules and consistency of the national strategies.