FISCAL SUSTAINABILITY IN THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION - A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE EU AND NON-EU MEMBER STATES

The paper's main purpose is to assess the short-, medium- and long-term sustainability of fiscal policy in the great majority of the EU and non-EU member states in the Mediterranean Region. By using mainstream (primary fiscal gap) theory (proposed by Buiter (1983) and Blanchard (1990)), the difference between the required primary fiscal balance to GDP ratio and the actual primary fiscal balance to GDP ratio is calculated for selected Mediterranean countries. Based on simple mainstream theory measures of fiscal sustainability, the results indicate that fiscal sustainability seems to be a problem in many Mediterranean countries, particularly in Greece, Italy and France (in the EU Mediterranean region) as well as in Croatia, Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey (in the non-EU Mediterranean region). However, since the paper is dealing with an ex ante analysis on the grounds of ex post algebra of sustainability some caution should be exercised.