Judges for Austerity

Budgetary discipline in the EU is established in the Stability and Growth Pact. The pact consists of agreements between the member states on the maximum levels of their government deficits and government debts. It consists of a preventive arm and a corrective arm. At present the government deficit and goverment debt of some EU member states are higher than the agreed maximum levels. In response to the economic and financial crisis, the EU adopted new policy in 2010 that came into force in 2011.

The rules on budgetary discipline have been reinforced, agreements have been made on surveillance of the macroeconomic situation in the member states and the European Semester has been introduced to coordinate economic priorities, the budgetary rules and the new macroeconomic surveillance. Since theses reforms took place, there has been an incresing inerest in the european strategy for the Budgetary discipline. Some comentators argue that the Budgetary discipline in the European Union member states has been laid down in the Stability and Growth Pact since 1997.

Surprisingly enough, despite the "fiscal compact", this interest has not be so significant in the legal and constitutional implications. The fiscal compact, as it is known, requires signatory eurozone members to enact constitutional amendments or equally binding national legislation enforcing EU-mandated budget constraints and stipulates corrective mechanisms to be automatically enacted at a national level if a country deviates significantly from these constraints. The panel will analyze the legal and constitutional implications of the above-mentioned reforms, and specifically the new functions of the European Court of Justice in the supervision of the budgetary discipline of Member States in the Euro zone. The aim is to examine the jurisprudence on the legality of the European practices of crisis management. The CJEU Judgment of November 27, 2012 in the Pringle case shows the difficulties the courts have with the defense of the autonomy of law against apparent functional necessities.

Speakers: Jose M. Martinez Sierra, Jean Monnet ad Personam Professor in EU Law and Government and RCC Director; Juan Manuel Mecinas, Research Professor at Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas; Diego Gonzalez Cadenas, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Univeirsity of Valencia.