Coordinamento delle decisioni di bilancio e sostenibilità del debito pubblico: ragionando sulla costituzione economica in trasformazione

According to the European Treaties, the Member States shall coordinate their economic policies within the Union, in the context of the broad guidelines approved by the ECOFIN and acting in light of the principles of the EU “economic constitution”. After the Fiscal Compact, this supranational and prescriptive economic constitution includes also the “balanced budget rule”, the principle according to which the budgetary position of the Member States shall be balanced or in surplus. Against this background, the essay aims to analyse the constitutional implications of the transformation of the economic governance and fiscal rules in terms of sources of law, form of government and evolution of the domestic economic constitution. The work explores, inter alia, the experience of the first 6 years of application of the new article 81, par. 2 Const., as modified by the Constitutional Law no. 1/2012. The constitutional provision requires a parliamentary authorization – approved by an absolute majority of the Members of the two Houses – to deviate, in exceptional circumstances, from the debt target.