European economic governance: the OMC as a road to integration?

The means by which macroeconomic goals such as growth, price stability, and full employment are managed have gone through major changes in the European Union. The introduction of a single currency and the Code of Conduct on harmful tax competition are two prime examples of this transformation. While monetary policy is managed hierarchically from the European level, taxation is regulated via soft forms of coordination. Why has this institutional set-up emerged? And what factors have hindered supranational cooperation in the tax field? Based on a historical analysis of their policy discourses the paper demonstrates that a common experience among policy actors seems to be a prerequisite for the delegation of economic policy making to supranational institutions. While the OMC is suboptimal in the tax field from an economic perspective, it may therefore be a first step towards more efficient forms of coordination.