This thesis engages in the debate surrounding the EU's NextGenerationEU recovery fund: more than €800 billion to member states to help them through the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. These...Show moreThis thesis engages in the debate surrounding the EU's NextGenerationEU recovery fund: more than €800 billion to member states to help them through the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. These funds are raised through common EU debt and some of them are provided in the form of grants. This combination led to discussions about the significance of the programme for European integration and the EU's possible evolution from an international organisation towards a federal state, specifically whether it bears similarity to the 'Hamiltonian moment,' a set of 18th-century fiscal reforms in the United States. The thesis compares NGEU and the Hamiltonian moment in terms of their respective context, content and consequences. It finds that the NGEU programme did not constitute Europe's very own Hamiltonian moment due to its very different and much less significant impact on the functioning of fiscal policy in its polity.Show less
