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A Euro Area Finance Ministry – Recipe for Improved Governance? A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Clauss, Michael; Remhof, Stefan Article A Euro Area Finance Ministry – Recipe for Improved Governance? CESifo Forum Provided in Cooperation with: Ifo Institute – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich Suggested Citation: Clauss, Michael; Remhof, Stefan (2018) : A Euro Area Finance Ministry – Recipe for Improved Governance?, CESifo Forum, ISSN 2190-717X, ifo Institut – Leibniz- Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung an der Universität München, München, Vol. 19, Iss. 3, pp. 36-43 This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/186085 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu SPECIAL Michael Clauss and Stefan Remhof accepted are likely to be complied with and acted upon. This fact has also been acknowledged by political leaders like French president Macron, who A Euro Area has mobilised popular awareness and support for a comprehensive reform of the euro area, including a Finance Ministry – common finance ministry (Macron 2017). The following article aims to examine how Recipe for Improv­ the challenge of legitimacy for a euro area finance ministry can be met for the two versions as such; and for a potential transition from the functionalist ed Governance? version to the federalist one. To this end, the article refers to the key principles of governance, namely rule of law and the prevalence of free markets (Juncker 2017). In other words, it explores the extent to which the current proposals for introducing and operating a finance ministry comply with these two INTRODUCING A EUROPEAN FINANCE MINISTER – principles, which can be regarded as pivotal for THE DEBATE (RE) GAINS MOMENTUM democracies and economic efficiency. After the momentous political decisions on saving FEDERALIST OR FUNCTIONALIST: OPTIONS the euro area taken between 2010 and 2012, TO POSITION A FINANCE MINISTRY FOR THE the debate on further reforms was confined to EURO AREA EU bodies and academic circles. It was not until 2017 that the inauguration of a pronouncedly pro- In most EU countries finance ministers have become Michael Clauss European leadership in France provided the political the most prominent figures on the political stage FOM University of Applied Science momentum to reform. Now the debate is focused next to government heads. This relates to their role Munich on reforming euro area fiscal policy to make it more in channelling public funds to reflect the political coherent, better synchronised with monetary and priorities of their respective governments with respect banking policies and better legitimized. This debate to the distribution of public goods and economic centres on calls to create a finance ministry for the management (Zimmermann and Henke 1999). euro area (Guttenberg and Hemker 2018; Bénassy- Generally fiscal policy is regarded as a domain of Quéré et al. 2018). Despite its political reservations national policy, a setting that had been explicitly against pooling financial resources, even the German confirmed in the treaties of Maastricht and Lisbon government seems on board for some institutional (TEU, Art. 125). At the European level, involvement overhaul of the euro area, aimed at strengthening in fiscal policy had been confined to loose coor- Stefan Remhof rule-based fiscal coordination – or a ‘finance dination of national fiscal policies and a small central Campus M21 Munich ministry light’. budget. The bodies in charge, the euro group chair Rule-based oversight of national fiscal policies and the ECFIN commissioner, pursue their European vs. pooling financial resources run by a genuine roles as a second occupation next to their main European fiscal capacity can be seen either as responsibility for national policy or EU economics alternatives, or as two consecutive stages on the (Wolff 2017). path towards a fully-fledged federal structure. During the second crisis that centred on Greece According to the first alternative, which we will call in 2015, leaders of the EU institutions initiated an functionalist, a euro area finance ministry’s objec- elementary overhaul of this arrangement (Juncker tive would be to help align national fiscal policies, et al. 2015). Pivotal to their recommendations was thus enhancing sustainability/reducing the the suggestion to create an institution charged with vulnerability of the euro area. According to the fiscal coordination, a euro area finance ministry. second version – that we refer to as federalist – a Further debate centres on two alternatives ways of euro area finance ministry should be one layer within defining this position, which we refer to functionalist a multi-layered system of fiscal authorities – Euro- and federalist. pean, national, local – instead of primarily super- vising national budgets (Hinarejos 2014). A Functionally-Defined Finance Ministry to Attune One key challenge in establishing a euro area Fiscal Policy Coordination to the Needs of EMU finance ministry will be to address questions of governance such as securing its legitimacy and The rationale for a euro area finance ministry in a acceptance between national governments and functionalist version (‘finance ministry light’) would populations. In an open and democratic society be to make the euro area more sustainable or less governance can be regarded as pivotal in making prone to future crises. It would follow the tradition any institutions effective, as only rules that are of political efforts to strengthen coherence and po- 36 CESifo Forum 3 / 2018 September Volume 19 SPECIAL litical management of fiscal policy in the euro area, national fiscal policy and area-wide monetary which started with the EFSF in 2010 and continued policy could be ironed out by inducing banks to with the fiscal compact, effective since 2013. In an diversify their debt holdings through the so-called evolutionary approach a euro area finance ministry ESBies (euro area safe assets) which are de- would assume the role of the euro group chair rivatives backed by a basket of national (Bénassy-Quéré et al. 2018), as well as that of vice government bonds of all the euro area nations president of the EU commission – in some resem- (Brunnermeier et al. 2011). A euro area fiscal blance of the high representative of foreign and authority could assume the tasks performed by security policy (Wolff 2017). a debt issuing agency, either as arranger or as A euro area finance ministry would remain regulator and surveillance authority. According distinct from the EU budget commissioner, from to the first option it would help create these the commissioner of financial affairs (charged with instruments with reference to underlying surveillance of national budgets) and from the government debt and organise interest payments management of the ESM. Essentially such a European to investors. In this function it would be assisted fiscal authority would pass judgement on national by legal and financial expert companies. In its fiscal policies’ compliance with fiscal rules of the alternative role it may be charged with regulating euro area. By itself, it seems only an upgrade of and surveying arranging companies (ESRB 2018). the chair of the euro group to a full-time position. This could be a natural part of its surveillance However, even such a modest institutional change is function (Brunnermeier et al. 2011; Bénassy-Quéré likely to have far-reaching consequences by changing et al. 2018). the logic of cooperation between national and 4. The ‘finance ministry light’ would be compelled European fiscal bodies towards more EU involvement to cooperate with the ESM, since its decisions and hierarchical decision making (Bénassy-Quéré on national budgets will also have an impact on et al. 2018). The current practice of cooperation access to ESM funding. Conversely, the ESM might change in five ways: assessment of national solvency, which has direct consequences for the governments concerned 1. In taking decisions on national budgets’ compliance such as imposing adjustment programmes or with euro area rules ‘the euro area finance debt restructuring, will also impact the finance minister light’ will rely on the ‘commissioner of ministry’s judgement in terms of fiscal com- economic and financial affairs’, who is charged pliance (Wolff 2017). with budget surveillance (Bénassy-Quéré et al. 5. There might be a link between the ‘finance 2018). minister light’ and the budget commissioner,
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