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EU Budget

Selected e-articles

Abstract: From September 1, 2021 to November 30, 2021, the BETKOSOL Project team carried out online and face-to-face qualitative interviews with representatives of the EU and MS institutions at national, regional, and local levels in different countries, as well as with representatives of selected trade unions and employers’ associations. For better knowledge and better solutions, the awareness of the protection of financial interests by relevant institutions has been a key issue running throughout the project. The article focuses on a comparison of the results of these qualitative interviews. The concluding remarks include some preliminary policy recommendations.

Abstract: As the European Union (EU) was slowly re-emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, it faced another unprecedented shock: Russia's large-scale military invasion of Ukraine. In responding to Russia's invasion, however, the EU was able to build on the legal and policy measures that it had developed to address the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, NextGenerationEU (NGEU) and the use of common debt provided a template that the EU could use to mobilize financial resources to support Ukraine against Russia's aggression.

Abstract: With the discharge procedure of the 2020 budget of Frontex, the European Parliament played a primary role in addressing the policy drift of the most important decentralised agency operating in the area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ). This case demonstrates the potential of the discharge tool in steering the performance of decentralised agencies at a time when the mandate of these agencies within the EU executive order is affected by a structural accountability deficit. Confronted with a Rule of Law crisis in the AFSJ, the European Parliament has effectively leveraged the evolving normative framework to imbue the discharge process with significant political oversight functions. In this article, I aim to show that a constitutional dimension of the discharge procedure can be conceptualised, enabling the European Parliament to reaffirm its political account-holder role as derived from the Treaties and ensure agencies' compliance with their EU-oriented mandate.

Abstract: Based on joint borrowing and a significant transfer component, NextGenerationEU stands in contrast to Germany's longstanding rejection of a ‘debt’ and ‘transfer union’. This article probes into the determinants of this shift in Germany's European policy approach. Focusing on the conflicts in Germany over the ‘deepening’ of the Monetary Union through fiscal capacity building between 2015 and 2020, it investigates which actors, interests and strategies instigated this shift. The analysis is based on trade and exchange rate data, a qualitative document analysis of position papers as well as expert interviews with interest group representatives, parliamentarians and civil servants. Theoretically, the study draws on concepts from regulation theory, materialist state theory and neo‐Gramscianism. It argues that even though not a fundamental paradigm shift, Germany's push for NextGenerationEU indicates a strategic re‐orientation of parts of the German power bloc towards European fiscal integration, amplified by recent geopolitical dynamics and crisis tendencies.

Abstract: The last few years have resulted in substantial changes for the EU’s fiscal powers, primarily through the introduction of the Next Generation EU funds. This article argues that the assessment of these developments as federalisation processes is based upon a central misunderstanding of the EU budget as a public goods budget in a federal state. The EU is a compound polity comprising of mature states, and its budget may be termed a “transfer budget,” which allows member states to predict budgetary costs and benefits. To understand the transfer-oriented nature of the budget, this article adopts a historical institutionalist lens. Revisiting the fiscal centralisation in the European Coal and Steel Community allows us to understand how the six delegations agreed to combine economic and social aims in this budget, which was intended to serve the European Coal and Steel Community with similar elements to a public goods budget. Revenue consisted of debts and a levy on coal and steel produce, whereas expenditure ranged from investments to payments to individual workers. The Treaty of Rome, with its anti-supranational basis, triggered a critical juncture in Europe’s budgetary history: Since 1957, a transfer budget evolved. Revisiting the European Coal and Steel Community budget system allows us to understand the fiscal federal appearance of the Next Generation EU funds: While the EU makes new attempts to use its budget for the provision of common goods, its functions are limited by the institutional structure of the transfer budget.

Abstract: The paper contains a critical analysis of the new system of own resources of the European Union, established to address the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. Analysis is mainly from the perspective of the balanced budget rule. Under Council Decision 2020/2053 of 14 December 2020, the Commission is to be, inter alia, empowered to borrow an unprecedentedly huge amount of funds on capital markets on behalf of the EU. This means that, for the first time in history, common budgetary commitments on the part of the EU will be on such a scale that repayment will be spread over many years and will be charged to future generations of EU citizens (known as the ‘Next Generation EU’ programme). The research aims to compare these innovations with the long-term financial policy of the EU, as a result of the provisions of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the Fiscal Compact. It also elaborates on the limits of societal debt issued by their representatives who form public authorities.

Abstract: Die Europäische Union war in den vergangenen Jahren mit zahlreichen Krisen konfrontiert, darunter die COVID-19-Pandemie. Dieser Beitrag analysiert das Recht und Regieren der EU in dieser Krise entlang zweier altbekannter Topoi. Erstens gilt der alte Topos „Not kennt kein Gebot“ in der EU nicht, denn sie kennt ein Unionsausnahmeverfassungsrecht, welches die unionalen Handlungsmöglichkeiten in Krisenzeiten regelt. Zweitens zeigt die Analyse des bislang grössten EU-Wiederaufbauprogramms „Next Generation EU“ anhand des zweiten Topos „Die Ausnahmesituation ist die Stunde der Exekutive“, dass die COVID-19-Pandemie eine Stunde der EU-Mitgliedstaaten und der EU-Kommission war, nicht aber des demokratisch stark legitimierten Europäischen Parlaments.

Abstract: Until recently, the recognition to the European Union of the capacity to borrow from capital markets for spending purposes was considered almost inconceivable without a treaty amendment. When borrowing for spending was authorized under the Next Generation EU program to support the recovery of member states from the unprecedented consequences of the coronavirus, it was immediately faced with the suspicion that the pandemic was being used as a pretext to promote the creation of a fiscal and transfer union by the back door in violation of the principle of conferral. In its NGEU judgment, the German Federal Constitutional Court concluded that the authorization to borrow under the program could not be considered ultra vires . However, the ambiguous and controversial reasoning of the Constitutional Court gives rise to uncertainty as to whether the funding and financing model introduced by the recovery program could be used again in the future, beyond the exceptional circumstances of the pandemic. At the same time, it appears that, in this case, the Constitutional Court applied a considerably more restrained version of its ultra vires review compared to its recent case law on the asset purchase programs of the European Central Bank.

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