ABSTRACT

The original Maastricht regime designed the Eurozone’s fiscal segment in a way that sought to keep member states’ treasury budgets balanced by disciplining them through market forces, reducing the overall volume of public indebtedness, prohibiting monetary financing, and avoiding that Eurozone treasuries bail each other out. In this article, we analyse how these ‘neoliberal’ rules for fiscal governance have been gradually superseded by an alternative approach that we call ‘governing through off-balance-sheet fiscal agencies’ (OBFAs). OBFAs are special purpose vehicles that complement treasuries in supporting public investment, offering solvency insurance for banks, providing capital insurance of last resort for other treasuries, and expanding the stock of safe assets. By sponsoring OBFAs, treasuries can substitute ‘actual’ liabilities on their balance sheets, which are potentially in conflict with the EU’s neoliberal fiscal rules, with ‘contingent’ liabilities – guarantees that do not appear on-balance-sheet. Together, national and supra-national treasuries and OBFAs form a ‘fiscal ecosystem’ in which neoliberal fiscal rules get re-emphasised but in practice are increasingly mitigated. This new mode of Eurozone fiscal governance is reflected not only in multiple policies implemented since 2010 – the Recovery and Resilience Facility for example – but also represents the main strategy in many Eurozone reform proposals.

摘要

最初的马斯特里赫特政权设计欧元区财政部门的方式是通过市场力量约束成员国的财政预算、减少公共债务的总量、禁止货币融资以及避免欧元区财政相互救助来保持成员国财政预算的平衡。 . 在本文中，我们分析了这些用于财政治理的“新自由主义”规则如何逐渐被另一种方法所取代，我们称之为“通过表外财政机构进行治理”（OBFA）。OBFA 是一种特殊用途的工具，可在支持公共投资、为银行提供偿付能力保险、为其他国库提供最后的资本保险以及扩大安全资产存量方面补充国库券。通过赞助 OBFA，财政部可以用“或有”负债替代资产负债表上的“实际”负债，这些负债可能与欧盟的新自由主义财政规则相冲突，即不会出现在资产负债表上的担保。国家和超国家国库和 OBFA 共同构成了一个“财政生态系统”，其中新自由主义财政规则得到了重新强调，但在实践中却越来越少。这种新的欧元区财政治理模式不仅体现在自 2010 年以来实施的多项政策中——例如复苏和弹性基金——而且也是许多欧元区改革提案的主要战略。国家和超国家国库和 OBFA 形成了一个“财政生态系统”，其中新自由主义财政规则得到了重新强调，但在实践中却越来越少。这种新的欧元区财政治理模式不仅体现在自 2010 年以来实施的多项政策中——例如复苏和弹性基金——而且也是许多欧元区改革提案的主要战略。国家和超国家国库和 OBFA 形成了一个“财政生态系统”，其中新自由主义财政规则得到了重新强调，但在实践中却越来越少。这种新的欧元区财政治理模式不仅体现在自 2010 年以来实施的多项政策中——例如复苏和弹性基金——而且也是许多欧元区改革提案的主要战略。