Next Generation EU: has the Hamiltonian moment come for Europe?

The article will study the project of “Next Generation EU” (NGEU), and its significance for the process of European integration. The analysis will first consider the reasons that led Member States to establish the recovery fund. Then it will clarify the main features of the project and its most important innovations, in particular the creation of European debt, the establishment of a transfer mechanism, the shaping of a common macro-economic policy and the impact of these reforms on the institutional balance of the Union. The article will also consider how NGEU challenges some of the principles outlined by the Court of Karlsruhe to regulate the process of economic integration in the EU from the point of view of German constitutional law. In the light of the previous analysis, the article will reflect whether the establishment of NGEU fulfils the necessary conditions to represent a genuine “Hamiltonian moment” for the European Union.