La nuova governance economica europea tra “metodo PNRR” e costituzionalismo numerico di bilancio

The paper aims to investigate the peculiar path of “budget numerical constitutionalism”. In the period between the two crises (sovereign debt and pandemic) both budget flexibility and the “bad” use of debt led to a redefinition of the balance between quantitative budget constraints and qualitative coordination of economic policies. Next Generation EU and National recovery and resilience plans (NRRP), in this sense, can be considered the developments of the path that started in Maastricht and which has unfolded over the last thirty years, with ever greater attention to the integration of the economic policies of Member States and with the temporary replacement of the numerical constraint with multiple indicators for the achievement of more defined goals, such as those relating to milestones and targets. This trend then partially weakened in the new European economic governance deriving from the new Stability and Growth Pact, in which on the one hand the NRRP method is internalized but, on the other, new numerical safeguard clauses have entered.