Is a Minimal Federal European Constitution for the European Union Necessary? Some Preliminary Suggestions Using Public Choice Analysis

Friedrich Schneider ()

Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, 2023, vol. 40, issue 1, No 5, 78 pages

Abstract: Abstract After overcoming the Coronavirus Pandemic with massive spending programs and the possibility of running a deficit at the EU level, a minimal Federal European Constitution is proposed, to provide a legal and democratic base for the European Union. Six basic elements of a future European federal constitution are developed: the European Commission should be turned into a European government and the European legislation should consist of a two-chamber system with full responsibility over all federal matters. Three further key elements are the subsidiarity principle, federalism and direct democracy, which would provide the possibility for European voters to participate actively in political decision making, to break political and interest group cartels, and to prevent unwanted shifting of responsibilities from EU member states to the European federal level.

Keywords: Public choice; European federal constitution; Federalism; Direct democray; Subsidiarity principle; D72; D78; H7; H11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41412-022-00125-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:homoec:v:40:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s41412-022-00125-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/41412

DOI: 10.1007/s41412-022-00125-8

Access Statistics for this article

Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics is currently edited by M.J. Holler, M. Kocher and K.K. Sieberg

More articles in Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().