No Hamiltonian Moment: How New Budgetary Instruments Replicate Persistent Financial Ideas

Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG eBooks, pp. 197–220

Abstract

When the negotiations on the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Frame work (MFF) of the European Union (EU) were in their final round, the COVID-19 pandemic induced an economic shock.Member States agreed to adopt the MFF coupled to the EU Recovery program NextGenerationEU (NGEU) -a financial instrument unprecedented as it enhances budgetary powers of the EU with the potential to promote integration through funding.The interpretation of NGEU as a potential Hamiltonian moment remains controversial in the literature.This article contributes to the understanding of COVID19-crisis response policies and their consequences for European integration by comparing integration induced by crisis at the cases of the financial and state debt crisis (2011) and the pandemic crisis (2020).Hence, we address the research question: Does the COVID-19 crisis response display a critical juncture for EU budgetary politics?Following our analy sis, there is (1) a continuity in intergovernmental control on negotiation processes but at the same time (2) substantial change regarding bargaining situations and as a result (3) new forms of EU budget financial instruments with an unprecedented level of risk-sharing and liabilities, while (4) former institutional and financial ideas stay in place.The focus in this paper is

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