The painful Europeanisation of taxes: democratic implications

The author analyzes the complex relations between taxation and democracy and the need to reaffirm the principle of "no taxation without representation". Arguing that democracy and representative institutions are a fundamental prerequisite to implementation of any tax and that the lack of democracy make the latters no more than arbitrary deprivations of possession, it is concluded that the current process of European harmonization must necessarily introduce ways and means inb wich this basic assumption is preserved.