EU fiscal rules are meant to keep public finances on a sustainable path. This paper presents a new database that tracks numerical compliance with the four main rules of the Stability and Growth Pact starting in 1998. Our assessment of numerical compliance abstracts from the many exceptions and...

Faced with the impossibility of reaching a political agreement to review the fiscal treaties, the Commission could limit itself to applying the current rules with flexibility, which would maintain an ambiguous situation: much ado about nothing.

In April 2023, the European Commission issued a directive proposal on EU economic governance reform. The Council cut some tasks of Independent Fiscal Institutions (IFIs) that were in the Commission directive proposal; whether this cutting is justified is an open question. Early this year, the...

The COVID-19 pandemic and the pressure it has created on member states’ public finances have led European authorities to suspend the EU’s fiscal rules. In fact, these rules had long been criticised by academics and had only been abided by exceptionally. Beyond the rules themselves, the...

Economic recovery post-COVID-19 will be structured around answering a number of fundamental questions. It is necessary to take stock of the extent of the recovery and of the transformation our economies have experienced in the last year and a half.