The EU Tax: A Suitable Tool to Fight National Budgetary Egotism?

For decades a debate has raged whether and to what extent authorising the EU to raise its own tax could help produce a more rational EU budget, but so far no breakthrough has been possible. Actually, the expenditure structure of the EU household contradicts the normative findings of federalism theory. Member countries focusing on the principle of net transfers make it impossible to shift the focus towards European public goods. The agreement on the financial frame for 2014-2020 once again clearly shows national egos. The paper analyses the extent to which a rearrangement of the EU's own funds system would be suitable to overcome traditional thinking. It discusses an EU tax in general as well as various concrete types of an EU tax, and considers other conceivable reforms that start out from a correction mechanism. It is shown that an EU tax is overestimated in terms of its positive incentives. What is needed is targeted correction mechanisms to point the EU budget towards increasing the European value added.