Abstrakt
The so-called Fiscal Compact signed in March 2012 by 25 out of 27 EU member states requires the states to transpose the treaty’s rules that limit the annual structural deficit and the general government debt “through provisions of binding force and permanent character, preferably constitutional” (Art. 3, §2). While the goal is set, the means are up to respective states, and thus an extraordinary wave of constitutional engineering has been triggered.
This paper argues that possible solutions should be evaluated both from the perspective of their democratic legitimacy and from the perspective of their expected efficiency and economic performance. The paper advocates a solution which rather supports than replaces political process, a solution which combines a structural deficit based numerical fiscal rule with an independent fiscal council overseeing how the rule is fulfilled.