Does the fear of transfers between countries not risk leading to rejection of the project?

No, because the project explicitly provides that the gap between income and expenditure or repayments paid and received by the different Signatory states cannot exceed 0.1% of their GDP (Article 9 of the TDEM). In case there is a consensus to do this, this limit can be raised or lowered, without changing the substance of the project.

This is a fundamental point because the spectre of the ‘transfer Union’ has become a major obstacle in any consideration of Europe. Now the core challenge facing the European Union is not the organisation of huge transfers between countries; instead it is the reduction of inequality within these countries. In material terms, the inequalities within countries are much greater than the inequalities between countries and this is why we propose to focus on the former. There are rich tax-payers in Greece and poor tax-payers in Germany: this is why the TDEM is designed to harness the former (and more generally all the richer taxpayers in Europe) and benefit the latter (and more generally, all the poorer taxpayers in Europe wherever their place of residence).

It should however be stressed that this calculation does not take into account the investment and expenditure incurred in a country to achieve an objective of common interest benefitting all the countries, for example tackling global warming.

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This post was written by admTDEM