Can Europe Pay for Its Future? EU Fiscal Capacity in an Age of Crises

The Harvard European Law Association is pleased to host Federico Fabbrini for a lunch talk on Tuesday, March 24, from 12:30 to 1:15 p.m. in Hauser Hall 102. Federico Fabbrini is Full Professor of EU Law at Dublin City University, in Ireland, and currently a Fulbright Schuman Fellow in International Security at the Kennedy School at Harvard: https://www.belfercenter.org/people/federico-fabbrini. Prof. Fabbrini is the Founding Director of the Brexit Institute / Dublin European Law Institute and is the Principal Investigator of the Jean Monnet Network PROSPER and of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence COMPETE. He holds a PhD from the European University Institute and is the author or editor of over 20 books, including 5 monographs with Oxford University Press.

The European Union (EU) has recently faced a number of crises, from the pandemic to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, from the challenge of global economic competitiveness to disruption in transatlantic relations in the Trump era. These crises affect the EU’s economic prosperity and addressing them is expensive. In this talk, based on his recent book “EU Fiscal Capacity: Legal Integration after Covid-19 and the War in Ukraine” (Oxford University Press: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/eu-fiscal-capacity-9780198874232?cc=us&lang=en&). Prof. Federico Fabbrini explains how in recent year the EU has slowly but steadily expanded its fiscal powers. At the same time, it underlines how the EU faces structural legal constraints in consolidating a centralized fiscal capacity, and discusses how that threatens the EU’s ability to respond to geo-strategic changes that would require it to invest more on its own defence and economic resilience.

Lunch will be provided.

Tuesday, March 24, 2026, 12:30 to 1:15 PM

Harvard Law School, Hauser Hall 102

RSVP