Optimizing the Structure of the European UnionBudget Expenditure

Abstract

The article discusses which policies and to what extent should be financed from the EU budget and/or from the national budgets of the EU member states to satisfy the rationale and efficiency point of view. To answer these questions we discuss the existing approaches and apply the most relevant ones (in particular the theory of fiscal federalism and public sector economics) to examine the current structure of the EU budget expenditures. We conclude that there are few EU policies that would be more efficient if they were more fiscally centralized and there is a policy that should be brought down to national (regional) level.