The new German government will face a number of unresolved issues of varying urgency when it comes to EU economic governance. In the case of the fiscal rules, there is an urgent need for a decision on how to proceed after 2022. In the medium term, the future of EU finances and economic policy coordination is open; both have undergone drastic changes as a result of the Recovery Instrument. Last but not least, the new German government must decide whether and how to break the deadlock in negotiations on completing the banking union and breathe new life into the capital markets union.
Der Rechtsstaat ist in vielen Mitgliedstaaten der EU unter Druck.
Insbesondere Polen und Ungarn stellen durch eine immer systematischere
Aushöhlung rechtsstaatlicher Prinzipien den Grundkonsens der EU als
Rechtsgemeinschaft zur Disposition. Mit dem Urteil des polnischen
Verfassungstribunals vom 7. Oktober 2021 erreichte diese Entwicklung
ihren bisherigen Höhepunkt. Dieser Policy Brief erklärt die Hintergründe
des Konflikts, zeigt Handlungsmöglichkeiten für die Europäische
Kommission auf und erläutert, welche Rolle die nächste Bundesregierung
bei der Wahrung der Rechtsstaatlichkeit in der EU spielen kann.
The Conference on the Future of Europe remains an enigma just five months before its projected end. In this policy brief, Lucas Guttenberg outlines the four main open questions that will determine the outcome of the conference and whether it will be judged a success: What level of ambition will the conference aim for? Who is calling the shots when it comes to the conference’s outcome document? What will happen next after the end of the conference? And how will the conference impact the EU’s institutional fabric in the long run?
How to spend it right - A more democratic governance for the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility
(2020)
The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) will be the core of the EU’s new Recovery Instrument to fight the economic fallout of the pandemic. Under the RRF, 310 billion euros in additional EU spending will be allocated by the European Commission to member states based on individual Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRPs). In this Policy Brief, we argue that the proposed governance to decide on the assessment of RRPs lacks democratic elements as parliaments are largely sidelined. This should be changed to ensure necessary political ownership at national and European level; to include a second pair of European eyes to prevent misspending; and to avoid a roll-back of EU democracy. Therefore, we propose that the European Parliament get a veto over the Commission decision assessing individual RRPs and allocating funds. National parliaments should also have a say in the adoption of the RRP of the respective member state.
The EU should seize the day: It should issue parts of the Recovery Instrument debt as green bonds and thereby boost that burgeoning market. But it is important to manage expectations: Issuing green bonds alone will not ‚green‘ recovery spending. This will depend on the criteria for climate-friendly spending in the legal texts governing the Recovery Instrument – and these so far lack teeth. So, there is a substantial risk that EU green bonds will set the wrong precedent now if backed by weak criteria. This would pre-empt future legislative work on the final EU green bond standard. If the criteria for climatefriendly spending are not strengthened, the Commission should scale back its ambition and should only issue green bonds for measures that fully match the
criteria set out in the EU Taxonomy Regulation.
When restarting work on reforming the European Stability Mechanism (ESM),
the Eurogroup should heed the lessons of the pandemic: The ESM has become politically unviable while there is apparently a lot more flexibility within the EU treaties than previously thought. Therefore, this policy brief argues that the old reform plans should be put to one side and the ESM should be reinvented inside the EU legal order if it is to remain relevant. Such a reinvention would create a coherent crisis management framework that would be politically sustainable in the long run.
The pandemic will completely shake up the EU‘s economic governance in five ways: EU debt is possible and will become a reality; the EU and the Eurozone get a fiscal capacity; the European Semester will be history; the crisis managament architecture is politically questioned; and the Eurozone loses its relevance for EU decision-making. Taken together, these five lessons from the pandemic will render the old pre-pandemic Eurozone reform agenda obsolete. EU institutions should use the coming 18 months to prepare a new reform agenda for EU economic governance that can deliver tangible results before the next EU long-term budget will be negotiated.
Die Corona-Pandemie stellt die zweite große Bewährungsprobe für die Eurozone seit ihrem Bestehen dar. Nachdem die Wirtschafts-und Währungsunion (WWU) aus der Eurokrise der Jahre 2010 bis 2015 mit einigen Narben, aber doch weitestgehend intakt und handlungsfähig hervorgegangen ist, sah sie sich ab Anfang 2020 erneut einer potenziell existenzgefährdenden Krise ausgesetzt. Die Antworten, die die Mitgliedstaaten bis Ende Juli 2020 auf die Pandemie gefunden haben, unterscheiden sich von der Politik in der Eurokrise: Während der Fokus zur Krisenrettung zuvor auf der Vergabe von Krediten gegen Auflagen und einem punktuellen Umbau der Euro-Architektur im Bereich der Bankenaufsicht und-abwicklung lag, stand im Sommer 2020 ein umfassendes schuldenfinanziertes EU-Wiederaufbauinstrument im Zentrum der Krisenbekämpfung. Es ging nicht mehr um Kredite, sondern um gemeinsame …
Does the Eurozone need a “treasury”? The answer is no: The Eurozone needs a common fiscal policy to complement the ECB’s monetary policy. But it does not need a new institution to take fiscal policy decisions or to execute such decisions. The EU institutional framework is well-equipped to perform these functions. Hence, the focus of political energy should be on getting the right policies and instruments in place, not on building new shiny institutions.