Draft Dec. 2018 – comments welcome (brasche@th-brandenburg.de)
Diverging visions of the EU
The process
of European integration never reached a consensus on finality. Two opposing
visions still prevail: An “ever closer Union” leading to United States of
Europe versus an inter-governmental alliance of sovereign nation states à la de
Gaulle. Treaty by treaty a mixture of those two evolved. Furthermore, the peoples
of the EU are divided over sharing risk and resources versus relying on
national responsibility and efforts. Burden sharing seems to be acceptable for
the latter group if and only if they gain control over political conduct and
performance of the first group – this ´conditionality´, however, infringes on
national sovereignty and is thus rejected.
Those differences
materialise especially, when it comes to money. Re-distribution even at a very
low scale, as provided by the EU budget or as foreseen in the Banking Union, is
contested by potential donor countries and defended by potential receiving
countries. Any new ideas about Euro-area governance are assessed for a change
of control over money and re-distributive side effects.
Fiscal governance and Maastricht 1.0
When
adopting the common currency, the Euro, the member states forego two powerful
tools for influencing the pace of their economies: Monetary policy and exchange
rate. Slow growth or even recessions, asymmetric economic shocks and systemic
risks in the banking industry no longer can be tamed by a lower prime interest
rate, by devaluing the currency or by using the Central Bank as ´Lender of last
Resort´. Instead, two other tools are expected to support the economy:
Migration of unemployed workers and fiscal policy, i.e. deficit-based spending
of the public budget à la Keynes. Since migration was and is low in and between
the “old” member states, this option does not exist in reality. National fiscal
policy is the only tool at the disposal of each
member state.
Deficit
spending, however, can be used only if the state is credit worthy in
international financial markets – if the debt burden is too high already, the cost
of credit will rise to unsustainable levels and the state may become illiquid
and in the end bankrupt. One member´s fiscal trouble will spill over into other
member states, which might feel obliged to bail out the state in trouble. The
expected ´help from friends´ could undermine fiscal discipline and lead to
´moral hazard´.
The
Maastricht Treaty (1992) introduced the Euro as a common currency, while fiscal
policy remained national. All members promised to limit public deficit and debt
and a bail-out by other members was excluded. A supervision of public budgets
by the European Commission with fines as last resort was agreed upon. The
simple rules of deficit and debt limits (3% resp. 60% of GDP) morphed into an
overly complex setting with many layers of EU-supervision over national
budgets. Since enforcement of the rules was and is technically and politically
not feasible, the concept of Maastricht 1992 failed. Many countries of the
Euro-zone would need an economic boost by deficit spending and at the same time
cannot spend more credit based, because they are too deep in red already.
Does the Euro-zone really
need new economic governance?
Insufficient growth and high unemployment in
many member states after the financial crisis broke in 2008 triggered the
debate on ´completion of the euro-zone´. But what would make this currency
union complete? The ideas are manifold and rarely made clear and explicit
enough. A radical answer is ´Maastricht 2.0´. Proponents suggest that the original
Maastricht setting – some flexibility added – would work for the Euro-area, if
the rules would be respected. In this view the missing elements are the enforcement
of already existing deficit and debt rules as well as credible procedure for
sovereign bankruptcy. The assumption is that rational financial markets would
discipline spendthrift governments. The
financial crisis demonstrated, however, that financial markets do not play this
role reliably.
Could centralisation of fiscal policy work?
Some
Euro-members suggest the instalment of a Euro-zone finance minister endowed
with a substantial budget. This budget shall smoothen the
business cycle and invest in projects of European public goods with European
value added. There are two justifications for doing this on a common instead on
a national base:
- Market failure in case of public
goods and
- Insurance in case of adverse
asymmetric shocks, hitting just some countries.
The first
rational is convincing, however, those projects cannot be timed along business
cycle swings. The second rational is less convincing, since the risk is not
evenly distributed; e.g. Greece is more likely to need help than Denmark. In
the end a Transfer Union in disguise might be created.
The most
serious objection is that most problems are not cyclical but structural. Those
can be tackled at the national level only, addressing political sensitive areas
like redistribution, competitiveness and innovation. An EU-budget might be
(mis-) used for postponing politically painful decisions at the national level.
Even in
case of allocating a budget for fiscal policy to the EU-level, the disappointing
outcomes of fiscal policy at national levels might just be replicated on a
European scale.
EU-wide unemployment insurance and ´moral
hazard´
Unemployment
insurance and compensation payments still are fully national. How generous and
how pro-active this policy should be is one of the hottest topics and has the
potential of toppling governments. An EU-wide scheme could insure governments
against unforeseen large payment obligations. This, however, could spare them
the risk of annoying the electorate by placing a higher burden on recipients or
tax payers (´moral hazard´). Again the likelihood of receiving insurance
payments seems to be unevenly distributed between member states – resulting in
a Transfer Union in disguise.
Banking Union – risk sharing under
conditionality?
One of the EU´s brilliant achievements is the Banking Union, which
was created quickly as a response to the financial crisis. The elements still missing
and still contested are common deposit insurance and fiscal backstop for
resolution of banks. Countries with troubled banks prefer a common pool for
insuring deposits before removing non-performing loans from the banks´ balance
sheets. They hope for more trust in financial markets via insurance. Quite the
opposite position is taken by those countries with rather healthy banks and
well-endowed insurance funds: ´Risk reduction first – risk sharing second´.
A bank in
resolution needs fresh capital during this process. This demand for fresh capital could surmount the
funds foreseen for this purpose so that the ESM (European Stability Mechanism) must
step in. It could borrow in international capital markets and pass the money on
as credit to the respective bank. Liability for the credit stays with the
European taxpayer. Therefore some governments want the ESM to step in only
after approval by their national parliaments and under the condition, that the
receiving country accepts surveillance of her financial conduct. This procedure
might be much to slow for providing financial resources in due time.
ECB should become Lender of last Resort
Least
controversial is the need of a ´Lender of last Resort´ function provided by the
ECB. Beyond written law this is in place already due to Draghi’s promise ´…
whatever it takes …´. Rules and conditions for this function should be made primary
EU law – despite the hurdle of unanimity.
Can common fiscal governance be democratic?
The
prominent right of parliaments in democracies is budgetary sovereignty – ´no taxation
without representation´ still rules. Therefore any transfer of power over
todays or future taxpayer´s money needs approval by all national parliaments. For
example, the German Constitutional Court established
this ruling. Since the European Parliament is no substitute for national parliament,
unconditional transfer of fiscal policy instruments to the EU-level would not be legitimate – unless the foundations are agreed upon
by all peoples of the EU´s member states.
The road ahead
Discussions
on Euro-area governance are dominated by diverging visions. France and Germany
are expected to bring about reforms, but are divided on the strategy. A gulf is
growing as well between the ´Hanseatic states´ and the ´Southern Periphery´ on
sharing of risks and resources.
Recent
political steps in two of the largest member states lowered trust between
diverging countries further: The French president gave up his promise of a
balanced budget under pressure of public unrest and the Italian government
openly and proudly announced the violation of the EU´s budget rules.
The Dec.
2018 council meeting resulted in minor – rather symbolic – steps towards
deposit insurance and a small fiscal budget within the framework of the
EU-budget. Major steps towards a new concept of fiscal governance could be taken
under the roof of a new Treaty only. Agreement
on this is not to be expected soon.