On the Constitutional Feasibility of European Own Tax Resources by Means of Sovereignty Sharing

Sam van der Vlugt (Phd Student)

Abstract

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures, but does an unprecedented political integration project also call for unprecedented changes to the essential constitutional state setup? This a central question in the future financing of the EU budget, and a political one. Whereas this contribution will be of a legal nature, it aims to address a different but inherently related question that should precede the political decision-making, namely whether the current multilevel constitutional landscape of the EU and its Member States allows for such a shift in its current form by means of creating an EU tax-based own resource with (limited) discretionary taxing capacity at the supranational level. The necessity of such a capacity has been widely propagated throughout the historical development of the EU budget, and regained its place at the top of the agenda with the due repayment of the loans taken out by the Commission to fund the pandemic response funds. Before assessing the legal feasibility of these proposals, this contribution will firstly engage with the political and legal desirability of such a shift and the previous and current proposals made in that respect, also because the system of own resources currently in place gives a good idea of increased Member State’ responsibility in the cooperation that this current framework requires.