Over recent years, the concept of ‘European identity’ has received increasing scholarly attention. Despite this progress, political initiatives to foster a shared feeling of Europeanness still appear to be designed largely ad hoc. This contribution aims at providing a link between the existing state of knowledge and policy approaches to promote European identity. With a target group perspective, we develop a classification of measures to promote European identity. This classification is based on the distinctions between a ‘civic’ and a ‘cultural’ European identity. Within this framework, we assess seven proposals: transnational party lists for the European Parliament, an EU Citizens’ Assembly, EU consular offices, a Pensioners’ Erasmus, a ‘European Waltz’ program, an EU public service broadcaster, and a European bank holiday. We conclude that current identity strategies suffer from too narrow target groups that already tend to have a European perspective.

In 2009, Germany introduced a new debt rule in its federal constitution (Grundgesetz). The socalled 'debt brake' prescribes a balanced budget for both the federal level and the states. However, the states have leeway regarding transposition and specification of the national requirements into their own state constitutions and budgetary laws. This analysis presents a comprehensive comparison of the 16 state provisions. We develop an indicator which quantifies the stringency of state rules (Strength of Fiscal Rule Indicator). Two results emerge: First, despite the common constitutional rule at the federal level, the analysis reveals a considerable heterogeneity across German states. Second, several highly indebted states miss the chance to make their fiscal regime more credible. This finding corresponds to the disincentives of the German federation. Due to bailout-guarantees enshrined in German federalism, German states do not have incentives to impress bond markets through particularly strict budgetary rules.

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Sound public finances are necessary for the functioning and economic prosperity of a common currency union. The financial, economic and European sovereign debt crises revealed that financial stability and economic growth also serve as prerequisites and that all three interact in this respect. This has made clear that containing related vulnerabilities and risks in order to effectively prevent serious crises is complex and not sufficiently addressed by the current institutional framework of the Euro area. Substantial institutional shortcomings are now being addressed by reforms. However, in this article, we argue that further institutional reforms are needed in order to integrate vulnerability and risk analyses into surveillance processes. Above all, we propose setting up an independent expert council that is charged with the evaluation of all surveillance processes.

Das Erstellen und Weitergeben von Kopien dieses PDFs ist nicht zulässig. 1 Following the Geneva Convention, the author uses the term asylum seeker in the following. Against the background of the current situation, the term migrant seems rather euphemistic, whereas at times the term refugee seems imprecise with regard to the related legal status.