The European Commission currently plans to leave the EU debt rules as they are. "The Commission is not proposing this," said Valdis Dombrovskis after the Eurogroup meeting in Brussels on Monday. "Firstly, we completed this work less than a year ago," said the Economic Affairs Commissioner about the hard-negotiated reform of the EU debt rules. "Secondly, the discussions and the legislative process would take time. But we have to act now." That is why he wants to use the flexibilities already built into the new fiscal rules with the national escape clause.
As part of its ReArm Europe armaments plan, the Commission wants to use the national escape clause of the EU fiscal rules. According to Commissioner Dombrovskis, the Brussels authority will present the exact proposal very soon.
In the background, Germany had pushed for the EU debt rules to be adapted. The government fears that repeated use of the escape clauses will render the fiscal rules ineffective. The logic behind this is that the fiscal rules can only remain relevant in the long term if they are reformed. At last Thursday's EU summit, Germany did not oppose the escape clause. However, Germany succeeded in having the member states call on the Commission in the conclusions to "examine further measures" to enable more defense spending at the national level.
Some member states continue to insist on more European funding. Both the Spanish Economics Minister Carlos Cuerpo and the Belgian Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem argued on Monday that European debt is an important part of European defense financing.
German Finance Minister Jörg Kukies also left the door to EU debt for defense financing ajar. He said on Monday that Germany was still "very skeptical" about Eurobonds if they were simply needed to redistribute money to the member states. However, Kukies added that Germany was "open to considering joint financing for genuine European projects in the area of defense". "If there are concrete plans, concepts and projects at the European level, we will also support European funding." jaa