The case of the disappearing Fiscal Compact. CEPS Commentary, 5 November 2014

Following the Commission’s autumn forecast showing that only five euro-area countries exhibit a fiscal balance better than the 0.5% of GDP deficit allowed by the Fiscal Compact, Daniel Gros and Cinzia Alcidi attempt to explain in this new Commentary why there is precious little policy debate over these flagrant treaty violations. They find that it is not possible to put fiscal policy in a legal straightjacket and that the tight rules enshrined in the new Treaty and in national constitutions are discarded as soon as they become politically inconvenient.

The fiscal compact - Europe's "hard core" based on German economic conditions. OSW Commentary No. 71, 2012-03-07

On 2 March, the leaders of 25 EU member states signed the Treaty on stability, coordination and governance in the economic and monetary union. It will introduce new fiscal constraints and officially vest new competences in the eurozone countries. Thus, their right to coordinate economic policy among them will be sanctioned. So far, the Lisbon Treaty has only provided for organisation of informal Eurogroup meetings, to be attended by representatives of the European Commission. The principles introduced by the compact, if the eurozone countries are really determined to observe its provisions, will create a new way of managing the single currency. Within the next few years, the most indebted countries will have to carry out radical reforms to boost their competitiveness and adjust it to German standards. During this period the Federal Republic of Germany will most probably decide to offer higher loan guarantees to relieve these countries’ budgets. The compact’s political consequences are also of great significance, especially considering how the treaty was finalised. The eurozone states have in fact accepted that the direction for changes will be devised by France and Germany, and the role of European institutions such as the Commission or the Parliament may weaken. From the perspective of eurozone candidate countries, the introduction of the fiscal compact means expanding the scope of conditions they must meet to become members of the single currency area. In the future, a country, in order to adopt the single currency, will have to meet the structural deficit criterion, and also most probably carry out economic reforms such as unifying its fiscal system. These goals will be achieved across the eurozone gradually, in the subsequent stages of the economic governance reform.

Autonomy in the global era: Euro-regionalism and new policy spaces in education. ACES Working Papers, August 2010

Framed by a critical discussion of methodological nationalism, this paper explores the intersection of new and evolving regional, central state, and supranational education policy spaces through examples drawn from post-Franco Spain. This work is situated within the broader literature on the development of a European Education Policy Space, which aims to understand changing governance structures in European education (cf. Grek et al., 2009; Lawn & Lingard,2002; N6voa & Lawn, 2002). Using policy documents since 2000 and interview data, the paper first examines Spanish and regional (Catalan) education policy related to devolution, namely Catalonia's recently revised Statute of Autonomy. The paper then places devolution in Spain and Catalonia in a broader context of Euro-regionalism, which has deepened and legitimized regional autonomy. Together these shifts in educational governance and the development of new education policy spaces have promoted a concept of the multi-scalar, European "ideal citizen" (Engel & Ortloff, 2009). The last section presents an overview of the recent influx of immigrants into Catalonia and Spain, exploring whether and to what extent recent education policy promoting the "ideal citizen" has taken non-European immigrants into account.