City Research Online

Abstract

The EU’s path of integration sees it adopt harmonising agendas in many areas of EU law. As theytouch on areas of Member State sovereignty, these agendas are proving difficult to achieve, either without significant reform, or at all. As a consequence, the future development of EU law in the direction of continued integration is not certain. Differentiated integration may be the viable alternative. Theresearch questionthis article therefore seeks to answer is: how far should harmonisation go in the EU? In answering this question, the adoption of a case study methodology allows for generalisingfrom a specific example to the wider EU trajectory.Tax embodiesthe tensions between Member State sovereignty and EU law harmonising agendas,and in the context of the imperative to harmonise caused by the digitalisation of the economy, it is a microcosm. The tax microcosm demonstratesthat there are limits to how far harmonisation can go in the EU, and that the future will likely see more differentiated integration.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Journal of International and Comparative Law following peer review. The definitive published version Fahey, E. (2020). Future-mapping the directions of European Union (EU) law: how do we predict the future of EU law. Journal of International and Comparative Law, 7(2), p371-387, is available online on Westlaw UK.
Publisher Keywords:	Digital Tax, Digital Services Tax, Tax Harmonisation, EU Integration, Differentiated Integration
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HG Finance J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) K Law > K Law (General)
Departments:	The City Law School > Academic Programmes
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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