On the Way towards Fiscal Federalism?

Abstract

Debates around the common budget of the European Union have shifted considerably from the original fundamental objectives of the budget towards the fight related to the imbalances in net positions of the Member States over the past three decades. The solutions to the imbalance in net positions found until now have made the understanding of the common budget much more difficult than before and led to tendency of focusing even more on net positions. The opposite of this approach is the so-called “fiscal federalism”, but the current practice of the European Union is far from it. In the article, following the examination of these two counterpoles, we explore the potential development paths for the common budget on the basis of the different scenarios of the European Commission’s 2017 White Paper on the Future of Europe.