Twenty Eight States: The Fiscal Consolidation of the European Union (original) (raw)

This article argues that the EU is becoming a fiscal as well as a monetary union. This is not because of some political conspiracy. Rather, it argues these fiscal interventions are the reluctant response of Northern Europe in general and Germany in particular to the parlous state of the public finance in Southern Europe. That the North feels compelled to intervene to protect the euro and economic prosperity across Europe, and that this will be increasingly necessary due to the increased size of and divergence between European economies.