Delegation and control in the EU fiscal governance

Since the Treaty of Maastricht European countries have provided tighter controls over national budgets and increased executive powers to supranational institutions, especially to the Commission. Although scholars have variously investigated the bargaining dynamics in the fiscal governance of the European Union, there are no relevant works on the competence distribution among decision-makers at national and supranational levels over time. To understand the design and development of the rules governing the EU fiscal policy, this paper complements the existing literature by the delegation and negotiation theories. It reviews, across a dataset including the major provisions of the EU fiscal governance rules, the pattern of delegation of executive power to the Council, the Commission and the national authorities. Preliminary results suggest that the EU fiscal policy, despite remaining Council-centred, displays an increasing role of the Commission and more stringent constraints on national budget over the past twenty years.