The fiscal anatomy of a regulatory polity: Tax policy and multilevel governance in the EU

The paper analyzes the common assumption that the EU has little power over taxation. We find that the EU's own taxing power is indeed narrowly circumscribed: its revenues have evolved from rather supranational beginnings in the 1950s towards an increasingly intergovernmental system. Based on a comprehensive analysis of EU tax legislation and ECJ tax jurisprudence from 1958 to 2007, we show that at the same time, the EU exerts considerable regulatory control over the member states' taxing power and imposes tighter constraints on member state taxes than the US federal government imposes on state taxation. These findings contradict the standard account of the EU as a regulatory polity which specializes in apolitical issues of market creation and leaves political issues to the member states: despite strong safeguards, the EU massively regulates the highly salient issue of member state taxation. --

Research Agenda: The European integration of core state powers

The literature on European integration has its own business cycles. In the 2000s, the common wisdom was that the Maastricht Treaty had ushered the EU into a stable constitutional equilibrium that was unlikely to be upset soon (Hix 2007: 143–44; Moravcsik 2005: 349). In the 2010s, by contrast, the common wisdom holds that Maastricht has unleashed new dynamics of change that transform the institutional architecture of the EU in significant ways. Some scholars diagnose the rise of a ‘new intergovernmentalism’ that allegedly overlays and partly displaces the supranational actors and institutions of the traditional community method (Bickerton et al. 2014; Puetter 2014). Others note the creeping territorial differentiation of EU integration: national opt‐outs from common policies become an increasingly normal feature of EU policy‐making (Leuffen et al. 2013). Yet others are concerned with the politicization of EU policies and institutions. They observe an increasing spill‐over of EU issues from technocratic elite arenas into the public sphere, a gradual dislocation of the traditional permissive consensus by a constraining dissensus and the emergence of salient domestic cleavages over EU issues (Hooghe and Marks 2009; Kriesi et al. 2012; Zürn et al. 2012: 72)

The fiscal anatomy of a regulatory polity: Tax policy and multilevel governance in the EU

The paper analyzes the common assumption that the EU has little power over taxation. We find that the EU's own taxing power is indeed narrowly circumscribed: its revenues have evolved from rather supranational beginnings in the 1950s towards an increasingly intergovernmental system. Based on a comprehensive analysis of EU tax legislation and ECJ tax jurisprudence from 1958 to 2007, we show that at the same time, the EU exerts considerable regulatory control over the member states' taxing power and imposes tighter constraints on member state taxes than the US federal government imposes on state taxation. These findings contradict the standard account of the EU as a regulatory polity which specializes in apolitical issues of market creation and leaves political issues to the member states: despite strong safeguards, the EU massively regulates the highly salient issue of member state taxation

The Institutional Framework of the EU

The Handbook provides an authoritative overview of the MLG literature. . . it has the potential to be widely used as a source of reference. The book is systematically structured, and most chapters are of high quality. . .' Achim Hurrelmann, Environment and Planning C 'The editors have produced an authoritative and comprehensive guide to multi-level governance. The book ranges across the domestic context, supraregionalism and global governance all filtered through a sophisticated analytical framework and attention to policy detail. There is no better place to go than this book for a guide to the topic. An outstanding accomplishment.' David Held, London School of Economics, UK Scholarship of multi-level governance has developed into one of the most innovative themes of research in political science and public policy. This accessible Handbook presents a thorough review of the wide-ranging literature, encompassing various theoretical and conceptual approaches to multi-level governance and their application to policy-making in domestic, regional and global contexts. The importance of multi-level governance in specific policy areas is highlighted, and the contributors an international group of highly renowned scholars report on the ways in which their field of specialization is or may be affected by multi-level governance and how developments could affect its conceptualization. European integration is considered from its unique standpoint as the key catalyst in the development of multi-level approaches, and the use of multi-level governance in other parts of the world, at both domestic and regional levels, is also considered in detail before focus is shifted towards global governance. The Handbook concludes with a presentation of six policy fields and instruments affected by multi-level governance, including: social policy, environmental policy, economic policy, international taxation, standard-setting and policing. This comprehensive Handbook takes stock of the vast array of multi-level governance theory and research developed in subfields of political science and public policy, and as such will provide an invaluable reference tool for scholars, researchers and students with a special interest in public policy, regulation and governance

Der Wandel des regulativen Mehrebenensystems der EU

Das europäische Mehrebenensystem wird weithin durch eine spezifische Arbeitsteilung charakterisiert, wonach die europäische Ebene stark im Bereich Pareto-optimierender und eher unpolitischer Marktregulierung sei, den Mitgliedstaaten dagegen die klassischen Staatsaufgaben wie Sicherheit, Besteuerung oder Bildung vorbehalten blieben, die tief in individuelle Belange eingreifen. Der Beitrag zeigt anhand der inneren Sicherheit und der Steuerpolitik, dass sich die EU im Gegensatz zu diesem Standardmodell nicht auf Marktregulierung beschränkt, sondern auch staatliche Kernaufgaben intensiv reguliert. Ursache hierfür sind externe Effekte der Schaffung des gemeinsamen Binnenmarktes und das Fehlen eigenständiger Handlungsmittel in diesen Bereichen, das durch Regulierung kompensiert wird. Durch den vorherrschenden Modus der Regulierung bleiben die Eingriffe der EU aber weithin unsichtbar.The European multi-level system is widely characterized by a specific division of labor which gives the EU-level strong powers in the field of unpolitical and Pareto-improving market-regulation and leaves to the member states core state policies such as security, taxation or education which interfere deeply into individual interests. Based on an analysis of internal security and tax policies, the article shows that contrary to the assumptions of the standard model the EU is not limited to market regulation but also regulates core state policies. This is caused by the external effects of the creation of an internal market and by the lack of independent means of action in these areas which is compensated by regulatory activity. However, the prevailing mode of regulation makes EU intervention in these fields largely invisible

More integration, less federation : the European integration of core state powers

First published online: 18 Jun 2015We map the pattern and extent of the European integration of core state powers (coercive force, public finance and public administration) and analyse causes and consequences. We highlight two findings: First, in contrast to historical examples of federal state-building, where the nationalization of core state powers precipitated the institutional, territorial and political consolidation of the emerging state, the European integration of core state powers is associated with the institutional, territorial and political fragmentation of the European Union. Second, in contrast to European market integration, state élites and mass publics, not organized business interests, are the prime drivers of integration.Published version of EUI RSCAS WP 2015/3