Fiscal union

Under a fiscal union is defined as the common fiscal policy within a federal state or more countries. A fiscal union has common institutions, which are authorized by the influence of taxes and government spending to operate fiscal policy, eg to compensate for regional and economic fluctuations. The corresponding contractual agreement called the " fiscal compact ".

European fiscal union

At the Brussels summit to resolve the euro crisis, decided on the night of December 9, 2011 to expand the euro countries and eight other EU countries, the European Economic and Monetary Union ( EMU ) to a fiscal union, for among other things, a debt brake and automatic sanctions " budget sinners " provides. The United Kingdom ( UK ) and the Czech Republic do not want to join as the only EU members of the fiscal union. The United Kingdom and Denmark have a special role, as they have agreed in 1992 a derogation ("opt -out") in the Maastricht Treaty within the EMU. This frees both countries from the obligation to adopt the euro.

A common fiscal and debt policy is controversial in its possible consequences among economists. So says the economist Heiner Flassbeck: "If households and firms spend too little money to keep the economy running, one even more than before saving state can apparently only cause mischief, because it brings the economy to crash. Convince Germany and France did the other 15 euro countries to do the same, the crash comes quickly. "

Paradoxical interventions

On one hand, the IMF is clear, at least since 2003 that fiscal adjustment programs often do more harm than good. On the other hand, said Olivier Blanchard ( IMF Chief Economist ) on 1 January 2013, the date of entry into force of the European fiscal pact that he had miscalculated the calculation of the fiscal multiplier. The Advisory Council declared the Council of Economic Development: " In 2012, there has been an unexpectedly sharp slump in the economy in the problem countries. In September 2011, the International Monetary Fund ( IMF) had expected a positive development in its forecast for economic growth for Italy and Spain in 2012. " And that, despite the energetic saving programs in any of the problem countries in 2012 succeeded in a further increase in its debt ratio to be avoided. The reasons for this are given that the significant economic slowdown has zunichtegemacht a significant proportion of the budget savings, since the tax revenues worse than expected developed and additional government expenditure, notably because of rising unemployment have become necessary. Furthermore, it is explained that in addition to the problem countries in the monetary union of Belgium, Finland, Slovenia and Cyprus are facing a significant slowdown compared. The EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said on January 11, 2013, that household budgets continue to be cut. In November 2013, the European Parliament doubts about the meaningfulness of the prescribed measure of constraint Troika to Greece: Martin Schulz criticized now publicly that the Troika " more harm than good 've done. "

Competitiveness Pact

At the annual meeting in 2013 of the World Economic Forum on 24 January 2013 Davos Angela Merkel talked about a envisaged in the European Union " competitiveness pact ", precisely in order to improve the competitiveness of the nation states, and was in this respect that there are often ' things such as wage costs, labor costs, infrastructure will go. The policy measure of the reduction in unit labor costs (and thus reducing the total wage bill as well as lowering the overall economic domestic demand ) to increase the competitiveness, is among economists controversial: for example, the development of relative unit labor costs in the 1980s was in British industry not, as would be expected according to conventional reasoning, accompanied by a favorable development of employment, production and exports. (Forced) privatization of state infrastructure dependent indebted countries is often criticized anyway a structural program of the IMF as World Bank dar.

Budgetary surveillance and central government budget

From 1 January 2014 all those EU countries who participate in the Fiscal Pact (Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union ) and the criteria of their household budgets of the EU Commission and the EU Council must have not managed to reach, be approved. The European Commission is in terms of their ultimate goal of fiscal and economic union, as follows: "The creation of a political union with a suitable pooling of sovereignty, which has its own fiscal capacity in the form of a central budget and its own mechanisms which enable it under certain precisely defined conditions allow to enforce budgetary and economic policy decisions on their members. "