22 April 2024
“Very Tight Control”
In 2020, at the height of the Covid crisis, the EU had its 'Hamiltonian Moment'. To overcome the pandemic's economic shock, Member States agreed to back an unprecedented, capital markets-based 750 billion Euro funding scheme to kickstart the European economy. However, since then, it proved surprisingly hard to make sense of where all the money went. Apparently, one main oversight body is a rather informal committee of Member States. Now, internal documents paint a picture of peer scrutiny that remains at a general level, is conducted under tight deadlines, and is strongly limited by scarce resources. They also reveal an evolution of the process to a point what looks much like a mere formality. Continue reading >>
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15 April 2024
In the Dark
There is an old adage in the world of official transparency that “sunlight is the best disinfectant”. But when it comes to Europe’s recovery transformation via the NextGenerationEU (NGEU) programme and related instruments, the Commission insists on conducting as much of it as possible in the dark. As concerns grow about both the effectiveness and even potentially corruption in the use of recovery funds, this lack of transparency is particularly worrying. Continue reading >>
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28 September 2023
Recovery and Resilience Facility two years after – quo vadis EU money?
In 2020, at the height of the Covid crisis, the EU embarked on a new path. It extensively borrowed money at capital markets and handed it out to member states. After two years of implementation, it is now possible to make some preliminary conclusions about how that money is being spent. Reading the reports and listening to the hearings in the European Parliament, it becomes abundantly clear that most of it has very little to do with European policies. Rather, spending goes into mundane national budgetary expenditures that may be useful as such but have little genuine European value and little transformational potential. In a time with pressing common European needs, this is not how it should be. Continue reading >>14 August 2023
How Cohesion Became the EU’s Vehicle for Economic Policy
In Brussels, something remarkable has happened in the last four years. Cohesion policy—which had heretofore been a policy backwater, aimed at addressing regional disparities—has emerged as the EU’s primary vehicle for reshaping economic and related fiscal policies in the Member States. As a result, any economic or fiscal policy measure that can be plausibly described as a structural reform (primarily an area of Member State competence, subject to Union coordination) can now be reframed as a measure of EU cohesion policy (a shared competence) that can be supported by EU funds to incentivize compliance. How did this happen? Continue reading >>
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17 November 2022
Nature Restoration and Fundamental Rights
This year’s most heated topic of constitutional contestation in Finland is likely to be the Commission’s recent proposal for nature restoration. While nature restoration has an innocent sound, the matter actually involves a broad spectrum of constitutional issues. In this debate, political undesirability has turned into claims about the EU’s lacking competence in regulating forests and a general failure to respect the principle of subsidiarity. Last Friday the Finnish Parliament’s Constitutional Law Committee approved an interesting statement of principle, which is likely to affect the country’s stance on EU (fiscal) integration far beyond the question of nature restoration. Continue reading >>
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03 March 2022
Time for Military Integration in the EU?
For decades, the EU’s security and defence policy was largely looked at as a theoretical piece in the overall puzzle of the Union’s external role. During the past week, however, the unthinkable happened, and European defence policy has taken a significant leap forward. This brings to fore questions about the legal nature of the security and mutual assistance provisions in the EU Treaties, including the relationship between aligned and non-aligned States in EU defence policy. Continue reading >>29 April 2021
Between European Commitment and ‘Taking the Law Seriously’
On 27 April 2021, the Constitutional Law Committee of the Finnish Parliament adopted its much-awaited opinion on the EU’s Own Resources Decision. It established that its approval requires a qualified majority and thus a significant bulk of votes from the opposition, which has been highly critical of the package. Now, for many MPs, the situation creates an impossible dilemma between their European commitment and taking the law seriously. Continue reading >>
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18 June 2020
Who is ultra vires now?
For decades, and until a few weeks ago, Article 310 TFEU has been seen as prohibiting the EU from borrowing to finance its expenditure. The Commission’s Next Generation EU proposal reverses that interpretation and raises fundamental questions of EU law and its dynamic interpretation. With such a sudden change of heart, are the Member States under a duty to follow? What constitutional limits remain to their membership obligations? Continue reading >>12 May 2020
Constitutional Constraints meet Political Pressure
The Finnish Constitutional Law Committee had already in April adopted a critical position towards the COVID 19 crisis measures in the EU. Last week the Committee continued its critical examination. It came to the conclusion that the Eurogroup decision to essentially remove all conditionality from the new loan facility of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) is incompatible with the Finnish Constitution and expressed serious doubts about its compatibility with EU law. The Committee also repeated its concerns about the accumulation of financial risks deriving from EU membership. Continue reading >>
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08 April 2020
Solidarity and Constitutional Constraints in Times of Crisis
While important, European solidarity cannot take place at the expense of safeguarding citizens’ economic and social rights under the Constitution of Finland. For this reason, the Finnish Government needs to remain alert to the risks involved in the increasing financial commitments given by Finland. Depending on their exact features, the constitutional problems relating to “corona bonds” might only be overcome by a risky and time consuming constitutional amendment procedure. This is the result of two days of deliberations by the Constitutional Law Committee of the Finnish Parliament relating to the euro group agenda dedicated to the COVID19 crisis. Continue reading >>
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