By studying the process of coordination and economic policy guidelines in the EU, it can be concluded that this is a very important and complex issue, which has not been sufficiently explored in domestic literature, although it has a practical aspect on the country's path to European integration. In practice, it has undoubtedly been confirmed that in order to achieve the economic goals established by the founding treaties of the EU, it is necessary to set up an institutional and functional mechanism that will make economic policy coordination efficient. Such a conclusion stems from the fact that coordination is implemented by the guidelines of the European Council as an instrumental legal act, where the relationship between national and supranational law determines the success of the coordination concept. At the same time, the issue of economic policy coordination is not a spontaneous process, but implies the harmonization of economic systems in the light of supranational rules (norms), accepted by all (i.e. the majority) of the EU member states, while leaving the authority to conduct economic policy at the national level, but with setting clear limitations to independent (discretionary) decision-making. The elements of such a mechanism are determined both in the norms of primary law (founding agreements) and in the provisions of soft law (secondary legislation). The shaping of the institutional mechanism began with the adoption of the Treaties of Rome, which established the European Economic Communities, where the obligations of the member states to work on harmonizing their economic policies are determined, with the fact that the legal position of the states in this regard was later more concisely determined by the adoption of the Single European Act, the Treaty on the formation of the EU (Maastricht) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (Amsterdam). The question of the direction, direction, and content of economic integrations is regulated by the norms of primary law in an expedient manner, which is a prerequisite for the successful coordination of economic policy.

The Treaties of Rome can be said to have been functional in the segment of convergence of the economic systems of the member states because they relate to the regulation and operationalization of issues of the single market, customs union, and common agricultural policy by establishing clear obligations of national subjects to that end. Efforts to create an optimal functional mechanism were confirmed by the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty, which explicitly determines the need for harmonization of economic policy in order to achieve stable economic growth and controlled inflation and strengthens the legal basis of coordination through the obligation to adopt general (basic) guidelines for the conduct of economic policy by the European Council. Although the guidelines are a unique document that summarizes the objectives and priorities of the economic policy of the member states, they are not mandatory. Research has shown that guidelines are implemented in legal traffic for primarily two groups of reasons. The first group refers to the existence of elements of moral authority, i.e. the common belief (awareness) of the member states about their practical importance and need, while the second group concerns the possibility of abrogating the legal nature of the guidelines from legally non-binding to legally binding, in case of serious non-compliance with their content by passing resolutions or directive by the Council. Norms of primary law are characterized by rigidity and the inability to adapt to the newly emerging legal and economic factual situation in the phases of the economic cycle, as a result of which secondary legislation is equally important, i.e. decisions made by community institutions in the form of opinions, recommendations, conclusions, as well as interstate agreements regulating economic integration.

It is evident that with the creation of the Economic and Monetary Union, the issue of economic policy coordination gained a special dimension because it implies the centralization of monetary policy at the level of the Union. The results indicate that by delegating part of the monetary sovereignty to the European Central Bank, the states lost the possibility to fight the consequences of the recession with the exchange rate adjustment mechanism. Provisions of primary law explicitly state that the competence for conducting monetary policy should be transferred to the community level, while the competence for conducting fiscal policy should be left at the level of the states, but the failure to maintain the Eurozone has led to a reconsideration of such a model. Our position is that the goals of common monetary policy, embodied in price stability, can be efficiently and effectively realized only at the supranational level of government, but for success in this field, a certain degree of centralization in the management of national fiscal policies is also necessary. Certainly, the centralization of fiscal policy cannot be carried out in the same way and to the same extent as the centralization of monetary policy, because the member states will not agree to limit their fiscal and financial sovereignty, which is an integral element of the country's political sovereignty. Delegating the authority to establish, introduce, collect and control taxes and subjective budget law is not feasible, but it is not necessary either. The centralization we are talking about implies the introduction of clear fiscal rules for each member state, consistent mechanisms for monitoring and coordinating fiscal policies by community authorities, mechanisms for fiscal equality, the introduction of supranational taxes, and a system of joint guarantees for public debt financing. Prakasa indicates that national and supranational subjects of economic policy with continuous efforts are approaching the creation of an optimal institutional mechanism, as evidenced by the revisions of funding agreements in the sphere of economic and monetary integration, the Stability and Growth Pact, and the European Semester. In support of this, resolutions, recommendations, opinions, announcements, and conclusions can be cited, primarily of the European Council and the Commission as the main subjects of coordination, but also acts from the scope of competence of the European Central Bank, the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors, which perform tasks of essential importance for harmonization fiscal policies.

The research results confirm the initial hypothesis that the global economic and financial crisis exposed the shortcomings of the existing coordination mechanisms and caused the need for adequate reformation. The crisis has shown that the coordination mechanisms are implemented slowly in practice due to the impossibility of balancing the interests of different states that hardly agree to de facto limit their monetary sovereignty, even though they formally do so by ratifying Community treaties. In this sense, the conclusion is that the existing fiscal rules established by the Maastricht convergence criteria and the Pact on Stability and Growth were insufficient to prevent excessive budget deficits, achieve the desired fiscal discipline, reasonable management of public finances and preserve economic stability within the economic and monetary union. Fiscal rules belong to a form of tight coordination that is based on contractually established rules of conduct and pre-determined financial sanctions for their non-compliance. Although the undoubted advantages of tight coordination are the increase in the credibility of contracting parties and monetary and fiscal policy actions, the internalization of external effects, and the reduction of uncertainty and transaction costs, in Prague this did not happen in the full sense of the word. The results show that influential EMU members managed to avoid the application of sanctions or delay their implementation. According to our results, the fiscal rules as legally defined restrictions in the domain of budget deficit and public debt are quite well conceived in terms of content, but the problem is the lack of implementation of the pronounced sanctions for their non-compliance. Another disadvantage of firm coordination is its inflexibility, i.e. the inability to timely adapt to dynamic economic circumstances that interrupt the continuity established by the rules, as well as legal gaps in agreements.

Soft coordination, which is based on the application of agreed practices, and the exchange of opinions and experiences between the main institutions, is very useful in compensating for the failure of firm coordination. At the same time, it is evident that unlike the model of firm coordination, soft coordination can also contribute to a certain degree of uncertainty and insufficient involvement of community institutions, because member states are responsible for its implementation. As both forms of coordination show advantages and disadvantages in certain segments of economic policy coordination, the basic conclusion is that economic policy subjects should increase their efforts in conceiving hybrid models that would combine the best elements of hard and soft coordination. Hypothetically, this would be feasible through the joint use of European Council directives with the open method of coordination in order to monitor the implementation of coordination goals. Such mechanisms are in the initial stage of development, but experiences with the application of environmental policy in the field have shown that the models are suitable for credible adaptation of legal norms to extraordinary economic circumstances, which contributes to the creation of clear values in the process of political learning. Our position is that despite the fact that the creation of hybrid models can be very demanding to implement (because it implies the involvement of all national and supranational subjects of economic policy), it is not impossible with the existence of a political will and the willingness of the member states and the Community to make certain compromises. There is also a noticeable tendency that in the conditions of globalization of international flows, environmental problems, and problems of population aging, the coordination mechanisms become more complex because they begin to include some new (non)economic areas such as education, public health protection, and the environment, which confirms the goals of integrated guidelines for growth and employment and the Europe 2020 Strategy. As new mechanisms often include aspects of social policy, which are often contradictory to economic ones, subjects of economic policy must find an adequate measure on the priority scale for determining goals. The guidelines of the European Council in the coordination of economic policy can achieve significant progress on the plan of harmonizing national economic policies only in cooperation with the reformed and new coordination mechanisms, which arose after the problems faced by the member states of the European Union during the global economic crisis (more precisely, by transferring part of the competence for conducting economic policy to the national level). These mechanisms are embodied in the provisions of the Agreement on the European Stabilization Mechanism, the European Semester, the implementation of Package Six, the Agreement on Stabilization, Coordination and Management in the Economic and Monetary Union, as well as acts of secondary legislation aimed at creating a banking and fiscal union. It is clear that the new mechanisms of economic policy coordination in the conditions of the debt crisis institutionalize the change of authority of key EU bodies and establish better communication between the European Court of Justice, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission. The application of new mechanisms enabled the members to deal with the consequences of the crisis and should contribute to preventing such scenarios in the future and limiting their harmful effects. A critical analysis of the efficiency of the general and special mechanisms of economic policy coordination shows that the conditio sine qua non of successful coordination is the improvement of the legal conditions in which the European Council, the Commission, and the Court of Justice operate. In this way, the common goals of coordination regulated by the guidelines can be better formulated and preserved, create a favorable institutional environment for their implementation, and give the process the much-needed legitimacy, transparency, and support of citizens. The general conclusion is that the "discrediting" of the institutions of the European Union can be prevented only by strengthening the role of the European Court of Justice, but also of the national courts of the member states in case of non-compliance with the coordination rules. A big step forward in this regard is the adoption of the Fiscal Agreement, by which the new fiscal rules on a balanced budget and public borrowing limits acquire a constitutional character. The newly established fiscal jurisdiction of the national constitutional courts and the European Court of Justice is proof of success in efforts for tighter coordination of fiscal policies. The key to the successful coordination of economic policies lies precisely in utilizing the potential of institutions, both national and supranational legal systems, which can be achieved through a clear division of responsibilities, better mutual communication, and respect for mutual decisions. The role of the courts provides legitimacy to the economic policy coordination process and counterbalances certain political pressures that can potentially threaten the stability of the Eurozone, which is why their strengthening must continue. Although in moments of crisis the maintenance of economic stability takes precedence over legal certainty, the results of the coordination process so far prove that in the future we must work to ensure that the acts of secondary legislation are functionally compatible with primary law provisions.

On Serbia's path to joining the European Union, the harmonization of domestic legal regulations with the acquis communitaire takes on special importance, and the formation of an optimal development economic policy program is possible only with the determination of essential elements of the coordination mechanisms of the communitarian economic policy. Based on the results of the research, certain recommendations of de lege ferenda can be seen, which the domestic creators of economic policy should adhere to in order to achieve a higher degree of consistency of constituent elements and different segments of economic policy. In the first place, the prerequisite for successfully harmonizing the domestic economic system with the provisions of the acquis communuitaire is the formulation of a consistent, realistic, transparent, quantified program of both stabilization and development economic policies. In this regard, it is important that the government fully takes responsibility for the implementation of the established goals from the concept of economic policy during the term of its mandate, where in case of insufficiently successful realization of future real conditions in the domestic economy, this would mean the application of sanctions in the form of termination of the mandate and call for new elections. Such strict sanctions are necessary, because the issue of European integration requires the full commitment of the main subjects of economic policy, i.e. the government, parliament, and central bank, and the establishment of their coherent cooperation with other subjects, starting from trade unions and chambers of commerce, through companies in the public sector, to various citizens' associations such as taxpayer associations, environmental protection associations, consumer associations, and others. If the concept of the domestic economic policy does not meet all the stated conditions and does not enjoy the trust of the citizens, the coordination process will remain just an empty letter on paper, which loses its justification and expediency. Domestic entities have shown serious intentions toward economic recovery and progress by adopting the Fiscal Strategy for 2015 with two-year projections, which is largely aligned with the goals of the general guidelines for coordination. Thus, within the goals and guidelines of the economic policy, the achievement of macroeconomic stability is insisted upon through the implementation of fiscal consolidation and the removal of obstacles to the growth of economic competitiveness through comprehensive structural reforms. Nevertheless, taking into account the failures in the realization of the goals of earlier fiscal strategies, the implementation of the established measures and instruments becomes imperative so that the strategy itself does not become a tabula rasa.

After formulating an effective concept of economic policy, steps can be taken to harmonize monetary credit and fiscal policy as its two most important subsystems. In the sphere of monetary policy, the condition for successful monetary integration is the fulfillment of the legal and economic convergence systems established by the Maastricht Agreement and the Stability and Growth Pact. As monetary policy at the level of the European Union is fully centralized, economic policy subjects must make the necessary modifications in the field of monetary law that will facilitate future EMU accession. This requires a change in the normative regulation of the applicable exchange rate, which must be transformed from a flexibly managed exchange rate regime to a euroization regime. The operationalization of this goal may be associated with numerous difficulties, which are reflected in the fact that by introducing the euro as the official currency, the central bank loses the possibility of using foreign exchange policy instruments to limit and nullify the consequences of economic and financial crises. On the other hand, the domestic economic policy could realize benefits reflected in deeper and more pervasive market integration and lowering of transaction costs after EMU accession. The realization of these conditions opens dilemmas that were present during the accession of all member states to the single currency area, where the choice decision is always determined by the establishment of a certain trade(off), i.e. exchange of costs for benefits. Taking into account the possibility of joining the single market of the Union and all the benefits that it brings, domestic subjects of economic policy should respect the experiences of other member countries and follow their path of monetary integration, if the economic policy program has already determined EU membership as a long-term goal of a special of national interest and importance.

In the area of fiscal policy, one can notice the existence of legal solutions that were created in imitation of those that exist in community law. Since the harmonization of national fiscal policies cannot be imagined without the introduction of fiscal rules, it is stated that this condition has already been formally fulfilled in the field of domestic economic policy. Fiscal rules were introduced by the Law on the Budget System and relate to the regulation of the amount of the budget deficit and clear debt in order to achieve fiscal responsibility and fiscal discipline of the government. The reference values of the fiscal rules are close to those from the convergence criteria required in the EU, which confirms that the rules are quite well set in terms of content. The problem with the unsatisfactory application of fiscal rules requires that domestic subjects of economic policy determine sanctions for their non-compliance in a higher amount, in order not to reduce the probability of their violation, and if the same rules are already violated, the conditions for real implementation must be created already imposed sanctions. A significant role in the process of approaching solutions in domestic fiscal policy could potentially be played by national courts and special state bodies that deal with the issue of control over the execution and spending of budget funds. The role of national courts in assessing compliance with fiscal rules is conditioned by the existence of professional knowledge and qualifications that currently do not exist in the domestic judicial system, but this does not mean that efforts toward the institutionalization of such jurisdiction should not be continued. A positive example in that aspect is the legislator's announcements on the formation of specialized court departments that will deal with the issue of financial crime, which can indirectly have an impact on the tightening of overall fiscal discipline. A major deficiency in domestic law is the absence of specialized accounting courts, which would deal with the issue of the responsibility of accountants and orderers for the disposal and spending of budget funds. The equivalent of such control is the competence of the state audit institution (state auditor), which initiates the procedure for determining responsibility in terms of spending funds and publicly publishes the results of the control. The main problem is that in the majority of initiated cases there was no clear determination of responsibility for the spending of budget funds, and the undefined legal effect of his opinions, recommendations, and guidelines regarding the obligation to act.

In the field of tax policy as an important segment of fiscal policy, domestic subjects largely respect the experiences of member countries in the field of harmonization of indirect taxes, with special attention should be paid to the use of tax incentives to attract foreign investments, incentives for employment and environmental protection, which member states of the European Union practice in order to realize the goals of the Europe 2020 strategy aimed at stable, sustainable and inclusive growth. When it comes to public debt management policy, economic policy subjects established the principle of prohibition of soft budgeting by the law of the National Bank of Serbia, where Article 44 decisively prohibits all forms of debt monetization, i.e. lending to the government and covering the budget deficit. Given that all EU members had problems with maintaining the stability of public debt even before the outbreak of the global financial crisis, the task of domestic economic policy subjects in this field seems to be the most complex and requires respecting the solutions established by the new measures of economic management in the eurozone, in the part of the introduction of the so-called. debt break and gold budget rules. Taking into account the fact that Serbia, as the successor of the former state, inherited the largest part of the public debt, constructive measures must be taken to reduce its amount to 60% of GDP. The main measures that must be taken on that path cannot include only the savings measures determined by the current economic recovery plan, but require an increase in the volume and structure of production and the inflow of foreign investments, as a prerequisite for economic growth and development. This can be achieved by applying certain incentives for the investment of foreign capital, especially in underdeveloped areas, thus realizing the goals of the regional development policy, but at the same time, domestic businessmen must not be discriminated against by giving disproportionately large privileges to foreign business entities.

When it comes to structural policy in the part of the wage market, there is a serious lack of use of constructive macroeconomic dialogue, which must be corrected as soon as possible. This is especially present in the segment of labor and employment policy, where conditions must be created to strengthen trust between representatives of trade unions, chambers of commerce, and the state when concluding collective labor agreements. As per the guidelines of the Economic Council on the coordination of economic policy, in addition to sustainable macroeconomic policy and management of healthy finances, special attention is paid to investment in human capital, domestic entities must provide conditions for the process of lifelong learning and training of workers. In particular, the conditions for reducing the overall unemployment rate (especially the unemployment rate of young people) must be met, where the solutions established by the Lisbon Strategy must be respected and initiatives implemented by all EU members in accordance with national situational frameworks must be initiated. As the domestic economic policy is not spared from the action of modern coordination factors that are no longer only related to the problem of spillover effects and solving the problem of free users, but also include climate change and the problem of population aging, harmonization is necessary not only in the field of monetary and fiscal policy actions but and in the sphere of social policy, environmental policy and the policy of technical-technological and scientific development. A high degree of compliance has been achieved in the field of environmental policy, where the existing legal regulations include the most modern solutions of European law in terms of environmental protection, but there is a serious deficiency in their application, the impossibility of distorting the decisions of citizens due to the lack of sanctions or their inadequate level. The objectives of the European Semester, which relate to the creation of a knowledge-based society, also require the application of tax incentives for production, product, and technological innovations in a wider range. The success of harmonizing domestic solutions with European standards is also conditioned by the time lag of economic policy actions, which must be shortened to a level that is economically and socially acceptable.

The conclusion is that domestic economic policymakers on the road to European integration face major challenges that, although complex to solve, are not insurmountable if a credible relationship is established between competent state institutions and citizens' associations, with clearly defined duties for the sake of achieving the economic and legal advantages that EU membership provides. brings Although the process of economic integration also requires the limitation of some components of monetary, fiscal, and financial sovereignty, this should not mean that the state on the path of European integration completely subordinates national interests to supranational requirements, taking into account the recent experiences of Union members during the debt crisis and the failure to maintain stability eurozone. The convergence of the domestic economic policy with the values established by general and special coordination mechanisms cannot take the form of sui generis, because the smaller and smaller member states of the Union had to go through the same path, leaving aside the experiences of leading countries such as France and Germany in the field of coordination of fiscal policies. Certainly, this does not mean that the domestic road should be completely devoid of respect and protection of national interests and values. We are of the opinion that domestic economic policymakers on the road to economic and monetary integration enjoy, conditionally speaking, certain "qualitative advantages" that the other members did not have, which are reflected in the possibility of a comprehensive and critical analysis of decades of results in the process of economic policy coordination (starting with the establishment of the European economic community, through the formation of the EMU to considering the idea of introducing the concept of banking and fiscal union), whereby learning from other people's mistakes and choosing the best practice, the process of harmonizing the economic system can be realized in a way that is not only economically efficient and effective but also legally legitimate and politically justified.