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Time to demand sustainability within EU public finances

Finally, the reflection process to rethink the rules governing the economic coordination in the EU has officially reopened. The Commission’s Public Debate launched on October 19 is the first step toward a new course of action for European economic integration; a difficult nut to crack that will give headaches to the upcoming EU presidencies, but […]

European fiscal rules: reform urgently needed

The EU’s fiscal rules are currently deactivated due to the Covid-19 crisis. However, returning to the pre-Corona rules would be counterproductive. The first priority of reform efforts should be to ensure that applying the rules will not deepen economic crises and hold back recovery. The second priority should be to allow for more public investment. […]

Speeding up the reform of EU fiscal rules – back to work

The work on revising the fiscal rules of the European Union had started long before Covid-19. The global pandemic had put the work on hold, for good reasons. Now that the EU debt levels have risen to new highs the past year, there is a strong need to speed up the process to ensure the […]

Changing the debt rule would miss the point

Already before the pandemic, it was clear that the economic governance framework of the European Union was unfit to drive long-term prosperity and that it was particularly ill-equipped to sustain the economy in times of recession. The point however is that moving towards a better post-pandemic economic framework is not only a matter of fixing […]

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Can we have a political debate on the Economic Union we want?

After several postponements, the European Commission put forward an orientation for a reform of the EU economic governance framework on 9 November. Now, hopefully, a real political discussion can take off. Since the global financial crisis in 2007, the sovereign debt crisis, the migration and climate emergency and the emergence of the EU Green Deal, […]

Redesigning the EU’s economic governance architecture

In her address to the European Parliament on the State of the European Union, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen talked about the need to “rediscover the spirit of Maastricht”. This is misguided, given that the old rules damaged both political integration and economic performance. New, bold proposals are needed to allow for genuine economic […]

Resilient welfare states in times of disruption

Until a few months ago, the policy and academic debate in the EU revolved around the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), praised across the board as proof of European solidarity and a concrete manifestation of the EU commitment to address the pandemic crisis. The RRF indeed marked a leap forward towards a stronger redistributive role […]