The Future of EU-Finances (eBook)

Cover 1
Table of Contents 6
Thiess Büttner and Michael Thöne: The Future of EU-Finances – Synopsis 10
1 Introduction 10
2 Assessing the Current System 12
3 Europe as a Federation 15
4 EU Taxes 17
5 Conclusions 19
Vilen Lipatov and Alfons Weichenrieder:The Subsidiarity Principle as a Guideline for Financing the European Budget 24
1 Introduction 24
2 Decentralizing a central revenue requirement 28
3 Decentralizing the revenue requirement with tax spillovers 29
4 Implications of decentralized revenue collection 31
5 The recent critique of the GNI own resource 33
6 Conclusions 36
References 38
Thiess Büttner: EU Funding System and Smoothing of Member States’ Revenues 40
1 Introduction 40
2 Smoothing effects of funding schemes 42
2.1 Alternative funding schemes 43
2.1.1 Fixed contributions 44
2.1.2 Income dependent contributions 44
2.1.3 Tax capacity dependent contributions 45
3 Empirical analysis 46
4 Implications for smoothing and incentives 51
5 Conclusions 52
6 Appendix 53
6.1 Variance of net revenues under income dependent contributions 53
6.2 Variance of net revenues under tax capacity dependent contributions 54
References 54
Christos Kotsogiannis: European Union and Own Revenue Resources: (Brief) Lessons from Fiscally Decentralized Economies 56
1 Introduction 56
2 Aspects of an integrated and unified market 59
3 EU own resources: The current position 61
4 Arguments for a more active role for the EU in expenditure and tax matters 63
5 Experience in federal countries 67
6 Concluding remarks 68
References 69
Massimo Bordignon and Simona Scabrosetti: The Political Economy of Financing the EU Budget 72
1 Introduction 72
2 The present system of funding the EU budget 74
3 The limits of the present system 77
4 Proposals for reform 81
5 A political economy approach to reforming the revenue side of the EU budget 84
5.1 On the political economy advantages of the present system 84
5.2 So why change? 87
5.3 Which change? 90
5.4 An EMU budget? 91
5.5 Political dynamics of EU taxes 92
5.6 On the implementation of an EU tax 95
5.7 Transitory period 98
6 Conclusions 100
References 101
Friedrich Heinemann: Strategies for a European EU Budget 104
1 Introduction 104
2 The core of the problem 106
3 The misguided focus on the revenue side 108
4 Strategies for a better spending structure 109
4.1 Marketing efforts to make EPG more visible 110
4.2 Reform experiments 111
4.3 Accounting exercises: Quantify “equivalent national expenditure” 112
4.4 EPG evaluation 113
4.5 Contractual arrangements 114
4.6 Differentiate co-financing 115
4.7 Pre-defined net balances 116
4.8 Power shift to European Parliament with Europe-wide party lists 117
4.9 European Finance Minister 118
5 Conclusion 119
References 120
Michael Thöne: Transferring Taxes to the Union: The Case of European Road Transport Fuel Taxes 122
1 Introduction 122
2 Reasoning and European added value of a common tax for road traffic and transport 124
3 Status quo of transport fuel taxation 128
4 Transferring the excise duty on gasoline and diesel fuel 131
5 Conclusions 142
References 145
Kai A. Konrad: Light for Europe – An Electricity Tax for the European Union Budget 146
1 Motivation 146
2 The general constitutional framework 147
3 The proposal 148
4 A comparative summary assessment 155
5 Conclusions 157
References 158
Christian Waldhoff: Legal Restrictions and Possibilities for Greater Revenue Autonomy of the EU 160
1 Problem and question 160
2 The problem between law and integration policy 161
3 Options within the present own resources system 162
4 Legitimatory restrictions of own EU rights to tax 165
5 Conclusion 170
References 170
List of Tables and Figures 172
List of Contributors 174