The paper outlines the probable fiscal consequences of the accession process for the candidate countries and presents specific, fiscally sensitive aspects of acquis communautaire adoption. Apart from membership contribution fees, enlargement-related expenditures, never financed from the budget...

We formulate and estimate a simple fiscal policy reaction function for the euro area and individual euro area countries. Our reaction function allows for primary surpluses to feature three components: an anti-cyclical response of primary surpluses to the output gap, a response to the debt-GDP...