The presentation, given by David Cleeton, Professor of Economics at Illinois State University, will review the track record of the 25 years of the fiscal oversight executed under the common-currency project via the Treaty on European Union containing the Excessive Deficit Procedure annex. The Stability and Growth Pact, as supplemented via amendments, subsequently clarified, and applied the preventative and corrective arms in efforts to control macroeconomic imbalances. Aiding these mechanisms has been supportive work of adaptive new policy initiatives by the European Central Bank and the European Stability Mechanism.
A growing consensus on the need to reform the EU’s fiscal and economic governance framework, centered on fiscal rules, has produced initiating action on the part of the European Commission. Significant headway was made over the past year in laying out legislative proposals and establishing coordinative efforts on the part of both the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament. The adoption of new fiscal rules based on an assessment of the sustainability of each country's fiscal strategy will be firmly anchored in debt sustainability analysis. This classifies countries by risk levels through a transparent and jointly agreed methodology. A comprehensive overview and assessment of the emerging structure of the forthcoming fiscal governance framework will be presented along with likely developing challenges.
About the speaker: David Cleeton is Professor of Economics at Illinois State University. He is Co-Chair of the Economics Interest Section and Advisory Board Member for the European Union Studies Association; Member of the International Advisory Board, Modern & Contemporary France; and Former Fulbright-Schuman Chair of EU-US Relations, College of Europe.