Next Generation EU e sviluppi costituzionali dell’integrazione europea: verso un nuovo metodo di governo

The article aims at showing that, in order to deal with the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, a subtle constitutional transformation has taken place in the European Union, without any Treaty amendment. A new method of government has emerged, characterized, as in other cases, by a Euro-national procedure, but presenting innovative elements both at European level and within each Member State legal order. This method, designed through an original and innovative interpretation of the legal bases embedded in the Treaties, allocates EU common resources, partly as grants and partly as loans, in compliance with plans agreed with each of the Member States, and released bi-annually upon condition of the satisfactory and timely achievement of reforms and investments specified in milestones and targets: according to the model of “spending conditionality”, conceived in order to ensure the coexistence between priorities common to the Union and economic policy lines defined, in the light of those priorities, by each Member State . The new method of government, in which the European Commission plays a crucial role, has been working rather well till now and, through the reform of the Stability and Growth Pact, might in the future be adopted also for more ordinary times.