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.

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...

European governance is in a state of upheaval. Due to the impact of the coronaviruspandemic, the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine and the energy price crisis, Europeanfiscal policy has come under increasing pressure. In this complex situation, the EuropeanCommission considers a return to the...

The fiscal framework needs in practice to achieve a balance between, on the one hand, effective budgetary rules that allow governments to commit to sound policies and, on the other, judgements and discretion in how these are applied so that the framework adequately reflects the complexity of the...

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...