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RESEARCH PRODUCT

THE NEW ARCHITECTURE OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE AND ITS CONSTITUTIONAL IMPLICATIONS AT THE EU AND NATIONAL LEVEL

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La tesi analizza la nuova architettura costituzionale della governance economica europea come ridefinita dalle più recenti riforme europee predisposte al fine di contrastare la crisi economico-finanziaria dell’area euro e il suo impatto sull’assetto costituzionale dell’Unione europea e degli Stati Membri. La tesi, articolata in quattro capitoli e redatta interamente in lingua inglese, ripercorre le tappe salienti dell’evoluzione dell’Unione Economica e Monetaria, analizza le principali disposizioni della “costituzione economica” dell’Unione europea e contiene un’esposizione, in chiave critica, delle principali misure adottate dall’Unione europea per contrastare la crisi economica della zona euro. Il lavoro prosegue con un’attenta riflessione in merito alle implicazioni della ridefinita architettura della governance economica europea sull’assetto costituzionale dell’Unione europea, sia sotto il profilo normativo che istituzionale, evidenziando aspetti problematici quali l’intensificarsi della differenziazione in seno al processo di integrazione economica europea e le carenze in termini di democraticità e trasparenza dei nuovi meccanismi di governo della finanza pubblica. La tesi analizza, infine, l’impatto della nuova governance economica sulla struttura costituzionale degli Stati Membri mettendo a fuoco aspetti quali il graduale trasferimento di funzioni sovrane a livello sovranazionale, le ripercussioni sull’autonomia finanziaria degli Stati Membri, i mutamenti degli equilibri istituzionali in relazione alle procedure decisionali di bilancio, le modalità di recepimento delle riforme sul piano interno, specie con riferimento alla trasposizione del principio del pareggio di bilancio nelle costituzioni di taluni Stati Membri, prestando particolare attenzione all’esperienza italiana di cui vengono altresì segnalati i principali riflessi sull’autonomia finanziaria degli enti territoriali. The financial crisis and the subsequent public debt crises that have interested the European Countries since 2008 have revealed weaknesses and defects in the governance of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) as designed by the Maastricht Treaty, developed through the Stability and Growth Pact and formalized by the Lisbon Treaty. At the very moment in which the almost decennial process of amending the treaties was concluded with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty - after the failed experience of the European Constitution - the European Union has had to deal with a crisis that required the use of tools and procedures not even provided for by the new Treaty. The aim of this work is to analyse the new architecture of the European economic governance, designed to engage the sovereign debt crisis and its constitutional implications at the EU and national level. The first Chapter gives some historical data in order to understand the political and economic reasons behind the common currency project within the European Community. It analyses the economic constitution of the European Monetary Union (EMU) giving an overview of the main primary legal provisions introduced by the Maastricht Treaty, deepened by the Stability and Growth Pact and formalized by the Lisbon Treaty. The main objective of the chapter being to demonstrate that the causes of the failure of the original European economic governance in front of the crisis of the financial markets have to be researched in light of the unbefitting nature of the EMU: having created a single currency area among States of very diverging economic structure and development, without an appropriate convergence of the other side of economic policy, the fiscal policies. Chapter 2 introduces the main institutional measures and treaties adopted by the European Union and the Eurozone Members in response to the financial crisis, focusing on the legal nature of their bases, their structures and ways of functioning. Firstly, the Chapter analyses the rescue packages and the financial stability mechanisms that have been established to provide financial emergency assistance but at the same time to avert contagion and restore financial markets’ confidence in the euro area. Secondly, the attention is focused on how the European economic governance has been strengthened to remedy the inefficiencies and insufficiencies of the Maastricht architecture and, at the same time, to enable the EU institution to meet future crisis. Chapter 3 outlines the constitutional implications at the EU level of the new architecture of the European economic governance resulting from the combination of legislative measures adopted following the procedures established by the Lisbon Treaty, executive agreements (such as the European Financial Stability Facility or the Euro Plus Pact) and intergovernmental treaties outside the Lisbon Treaty (the European Stability Mechanism and the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union) . The Chapter therefore reflects upon the constitutional outcomes of the intergovernmental option as well as the mutations in the institutional equilibrium of the European Union, the increased differentiation of the already asymmetric economic integration process, the constitutional implications in terms of democracy and accountability and the resulting mutations of the EU economic constitution. Finally, Chapter 4 analyses the impact of the new European economic governance on the national constitutional structure of the Member States. The objective of the Chapter is to highlight how the new financial stability mechanisms as well as the new rules of economic governance, adopted outside the democratic circuits through a concealed but ever-increasing transfer of sovereignty at the EU level, operate as self-imposed external constraints for national constitutional orders even touching the sensitive constitutional areas such as social rights and domestic territorial organization . After having analysed some general constitutional implications of the EU economic governance reform for member states, the Chapter focuses on the Italian case to examine the introduction of the “balanced budget” principle into the Italian Constitution by the Constitutional Law no. 1/2012. It demonstrates that the new formulation of Article 117 and 119 of the Italian Constitution, as amended by the recalled Constitutional Law, runs the risk of a significant reduction in the financial autonomy of both Regional and Local Governments thus jeopardizing the goals of the Italian fiscal federalism with a new organization of public finance in which the central role is played by the national government, the only responsible for the compliance with the financial constraints arising from new challenges of the European economic integration process.