Economic and Fiscal Governance: The Hardening of European Soft Law

Holly Jarman 

University of Michigan

Scott L. Greer 

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - Department of Health Management and Policy
February 16, 2014

Abstract:      

The European Union’s new architecture of fiscal and economic governance can be difficult to understand. How do two legislative packages, a treaty, a strategy and a “European Semester” interact to shape member state policies? This paper argues, on the basis of a review and presentation of the new fiscal governance architecture, that what we see is a hardening of European soft law. The new European Union fiscal governance involves both tougher and more automatic sanctions for states that violate the Stability and Growth Pact, and an expansion of mechanisms of surveillance and Commission involvement in member state economic and fiscal planning. The result is planned to combine the information and constant surveillance of soft law with the judicial enforceability and tough sanctions of hard law.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 45

Keywords: European Union, fiscal governance, economic governance, law, soft law, governance, fiscal policy

Full text available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2398629