The differentiated politicisation of European tax governance

This article addresses the politicisation of European tax governance in mass media. Although taxation is commonly assumed to remain a national prerogative, European institutions have extended their reach far into national tax regimes. Whether this expansion of EU authority towards one of the core functions of the nation state is accompanied by politicisation is the question to be addressed in this article. To analyse the causal nexus between growing EU authority - measured in terms of formal authority and tax legislation - and the politicisation of EU tax governance, the paper compares public debates in Germany, Ireland and Switzerland over a time period of 30 years between 1981 and 2011. Based on a newspaper content analysis, the empirical results demonstrate that EU tax governance is increasingly politicised in all three countries. Varying levels and content of politicisation across time and space are explained by national economic and socio-cultural conditions.