Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/185384 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 7186
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
Why might the European member states seek for Fiscal Union? Coordination, macro-stability purposes and provision of (European) public goods are certainly goals of paramount importance for the implementation of Fiscal Union at European level. However, there is an equally important component of moral-normative nature embodied in the constitution of any fiscal system: reallocation of resources. The core of the paper is the idea that Rawls’ social contract theory can provide some insights about the implementation of European Fiscal Union in the re-allocative perspective. The reasoning put forward in the paper shows how the current European framework can be essentially considered an appropriate object of Rawls’ theory of domestic justice since the European Union holds those two descriptive elements which are sufficient and necessary to raise redistributive issues, to apply Rawls’ pure procedural justice and then to derive a difference principle at European level: a) the mutually advantageous cooperation among its members and b) a set of formal institutions which constitute a basic structure. The European difference principle prescribes to redistribute resources in order to maximize the expectations of the most disadvantaged European citizen(s). A corollary of this conclusion is that the actual redistribution according to similar scheme is achievable by means of Fiscal Union at European level.
Subjects: 
difference principle
European integration
European Union
Fiscal Union
John Rawls
JEL: 
D30
E62
F55
Document Type: 
Working Paper
Appears in Collections:

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.