“Fiscal or Bailout Union: Where Is the EU/EMU’s Fiscal Integration Heading?”

In his new publication “Fiscal or Bailout Union: Where Is the EU/EMU’s Fiscal Integration Heading?”, Marek Dąbrowski tackles the problem of the lacking components of European integration, in particular the need for greater fiscal integration, which was widely discussed during the economic crisis.
In his paper, Prof. Dąbrowski points to the lacking elements in the debate and tries to fill in some of these gaps. Starting with the definition of the fiscal union and an analysis of its interrelations with the monetary union, he then proposes arguments in favor of closer fiscal integration to finally take a close look into the size of the EU budget, its structure and the mechanism of its adoption.
“Ideally”, the author says, “reforming European fiscal federalism should involve all EU member states and should use the community method rather than concluding new intergovernmental agreements formally outside the EU.” Regardless of the shape of the final proposal, the author argues that it must be based on sound foundations of fiscal discipline at all levels of government.