New Publication in the Journal of European Public Policy: “European Union versus core state powers: the customisation of EU fiscal policy”
Tiziano Zgaga, Eva Thomann, and Mathieu Goubier studied why Germany, France and Italy change European Union fiscal policies during implementation. They find that customised implementation reflects the interplay of member states’ preferences and capacities: member states do what they want, if they can.
Fiscal policy is one of the most important tasks of a state — a so-called “core state power”. However, the European Fiscal Compact, which came into force in 2012 and was developed as a reaction to the euro crisis, contains basic rules on fiscal policy that member states must follow. How did the three biggest economies in the Eurozone — Germany, Italy, and France — implement these rules, and “customise” them to preserve their core state powers?
Tiziano Zgaga, Eva Thomann and Mathieu Goubier argue that the outcomes of two key processes are decisive for customised implementation: "uploading", when policy competences are delegated to the EU, and "downloading”, when EU policies are implemented at the national level.
Through a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, they find that customised implementation reflects the interplay of member states’ preferences and capacities: member states do what they want, but only if and as far as they can. Member states exercised "opposition through the back door" when their own preferences did not correspond to uploading outcomes and there were no credible deterrents. Conversely, they acted as problem-solvers or signalled compliance, when uploading outcomes reflected their preferences or provided a credible enforcement threat.