More Italian News on the Faulty Design of the EU

Image credit

Writes Paul De Grauwe,

The European Commission can now force countries to increase taxes and reduce expenditures without, however, having to bear the political costs of these decisions. These costs are borne by national governments. This is a model that does not work 

National governments bear the political costs of expenditures and taxes. The risk therefore arises that they will contest the decisions of non-elected officials who do not bear these costs. This has happened a few times in the past. In 2003-04, when their economies were not doing well, the German and French governments collided with the European Commission about their budgets. The European Commission wanted to force these governments to reduce their budget deficits. Both governments refused to do this and the rules were changed ‘à la tête du client’. 

Today the Italian government is doing the same. It is a government that has made a number of election promises and wants to implement them now. That has budgetary implications. The European Commission is now trying to force the Italian government to abandon these election promises without having to bear the political cost of doing so. The new Italian government would pay the political price for shredding its election promises. It will not do so, as the French and German governments did not do in 2003-04. 

The model of top-down budgetary control does not work in Europe. It does not work because the whole process of decisions on taxes and expenditures still exists at the national level. It is also at the national level that the democratic principle of “no taxation without representation” is implemented. The European Commission’s attempts to bring Italy into line today are therefore also attempts to impose exceptions to this democratic principle. It does not work, and fortunately so.