«The European Union as a Producer of Economic Regulation»
«Is Soft Law Taking Over? The Perils and Benefits of Non-traditional Legislation»
Speech by Roland Vaubel (in German)
German economist and Professor of Economics, University of Mannheim
Summary
State institutions are active in two ways: they spend citizens’ money and they regulate citizens. In the case of the European Union, there are strict limits on how much money can be spent. The upper limit is 1.27 per cent of the EU’s gross domestic product. This has not changed for many years. The reason for this is the EU’s curious but unintentionally ingenious budgetary procedure. The same decision-making rule does not apply to EU revenue and expenditure. The Member States decide unanimously on the financial resources. However, they (more precisely: the Council) and the Parliament decide on the use of these funds by majority vote. This asymmetry in the decision-making process means that those who expect to be in the minority and outvoted in spending decisions – above all, of course, the net contributors – tend to be cautious when it comes to granting funding. Caution is called for because the European Union traditionally produces or finances hardly any international public goods, but essentially distributes transfers that lead to a strong redistribution between the member states.
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Speech by Graham Mather
What was government has become governance. Where once elected politicians passed legislation and signed treaties to determine our futures, today un-elected experts make rules through soft law.
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