The Greek Case of Fiscal Federalism after the Lisbon Treaty
Ph.D. candidate in Public Debt and Local Administration at the Harokopio University, Athens, Greece,
M.Sc. in Management of Health Service Units at the National School of Public Health, Athens, Greece,
M.A. in Economics of Money, Banking and Finance at the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom,
B.A. in Economic Science at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
Can we consider fiscal federalism as the appropriate framework for the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity and proximity in Greece, as initially reflected in the Maastricht Treaty and reinforced by the Lisbon Agreement with the addition of the subnational dimension? Has the degree of fiscal federalism in the context of fiscal decentralization, fiscal autonomy, vertical fiscal imbalance and fiscal rules led to an improvement in Greek subnational fiscal figures during the period 2014-2017? This paper presents theoretical aspects of fiscal federalism and aggregated fiscal data of Greek subnational governments. Balancing between the appropriate mixture of fiscal federalism mechanisms and the provision of public goods at a national level with respect to the geospatial particularities of Greece, should be the ultimate priority of every government in accordance with the proximity principle to its citizens.
