European Fiscal Federalism (Part 5): Democratic deficit, Budgetary empowerment, institutional competition and shifting the status quo

Steps in this direction:

In the previous posts ( 1, 2, 3) I have described the economic logics for an EU fiscal policy and the political economy argument for delegation of such powers to the European Commission (4). In this context, I would like to highlight the recent report that a group of European Socialists are lobbying their party to pursue US style primaries to appoint their candidate for the 2015 European Commission Presidency. There is an equivalently irrefutable logic behind this type of process, which has been explored by Hix and Follesdal in a 2006 article on the EU's democratic deficit. This initiative could also be the beginning of something along the lines of the Wallstrom candidacy imagined by Hix.

European Fiscal Federalism (Part 1): Introduction to the “irrefutable”

It seems that weekends are only reserved for Lady Ashton. On Sunday 8 August, Mr Janusz Lewandowski, the (Polish) EU budget commissioner started floating around the idea of a European tax to be levied by the European Commission on banks, financial transactions, carbon emissions (permits) and air traffic. Berlin, Paris and Westminster were not amused, but Poland, Austria, Belgium and Spain seemed to not dislike the idea too much. Anyway, this is part of the ongoing process of preparation for the 2014-2019 budget which will be presented by the afore mentioned Commissioner at the end of September 2010. Most interestingly of all for me was the response that the proposal received from the Financial Times. I believe that unless you've subscribed to the ft, even if only for free, you can't read this article. It's not complicated but I assume not everybody can be bothered to do it. As such I feel compelled to report some of the comments which are rather strong: