CONSIDERATIONS ON FISCAL HARMONIZATION IN THE EU IN THE FIELD OF VALUE ADDED TAX

The proper functioning of the European internal market would be impossible withoutfiscal harmonization. The main objective of fiscal harmonization process is the prevention ofdistortions of the competitive process and the attainment of an equitable allocation of financialresources between Member States. The aim is not to realize a uniform tax system for the MemberStates of the Union, but achieving a minimum level of harmonization of the national tax systems, inorder to prevent harmful fiscal competition between member States. The paper at hand presents themajor aspects of fiscal harmonization in general and some aspects of fiscal harmonization in thefield of value added tax (VAT) from an interdisciplinary perspective. The paper analyzes the majorlegal instruments used in the context of the harmonization process. It also refers to the mainobstacles in achieving the objective of harmonization, such as the rule of unanimity at the adoptionof measures at the Union level and proposes some solutions. The authors also try to explain why thedirectives are the mainly used legislative instruments in the context of harmonization process. Theultimate objective of the recent adopted EU tax rules in the field is the creation of a tax systembased on the principle of taxation at the origin, in order to reduce the administrative burden ontaxpayer and to prevent illegal capital movement between Member States. The final part of thepaper presents the major characteristics of the actual common system of VAT applicable in theEuropean Union and mentions some of the major obstacles in attaining the above mentionedobjective regarding the establishment of a more efficient tax system in the field of VAT.fiscal harmonization, EU tax policy, national tax systems, Value Added Tax (VAT), common VATsystem;

Attention to infrastructure offers a welcome reconfiguration of anthropological approaches to the political

This constitutes the edited proceedings of the 2015 meeting of the Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory held at Manchester

Proxy Battles in Just War Theory: _Jus in Bello_, the Site of Justice, and Feasibility Constraints

Interest in just war theory has boomed in recent years, as a revisionist school of thought has challenged the orthodoxy of international law, most famously defended by Michael Walzer [1977]. These revisionist critics have targeted the two central principles governing the conduct of war (jus in bello): combatant equality and noncombatant immunity. The first states that combatants face the same permissions and constraints whether their cause is just or unjust. The second protects noncombatants from intentional attack. In response to these critics, some philosophers have defended aspects of the old orthodoxy on novel grounds. Revisionists counter. As things stand, the prospects for progress are remote. In this paper, we offer a way forward. We argue that exclusive focus on first-order moral principles, such as combatant equality and noncombatant immunity, has led revisionist and orthodox just war theorists to engage in “proxy battles.” Their first-order moral disagreements are at least partly traceable to second-order disagreements about the nature and purpose of political theory. These deeper disputes have been central to the broader discipline of political theory for several years; we hope that bringing them to bear on the ethics of war will help us move beyond the present impasse