The Lisbon Strategy supports reform of Member States' tax-benefit systems while the 'fiscal philosophy' of the EMU postulates that governments should allow only automatic stabilizers, built into tax-benefit systems, to smooth aggregate income. We ask whether these two pillars of EU economic...

The fiscal policy framework of EMU and possible reforms of the Stability and Growth Pact have elicited much debate. The pact has been predicated on a conception of it as a device to discipline Member States. This gives rise to a paradox in which the credibility of policy-makers it is supposed to...

The new policy environment of EMU affects economic, political, and social cohesion in different ways: the policy mix and menu will be reconfigured; it will provide for more macroeconomic stability in cohesion countries; economic competition will intensify and change patterns of specialisation; and...