EU expenditure rules aim to maintain national budget deficits – the amount that governments spend in relation to what they bring – less than 3% of the size of the economy and public debt more than 60%.
But countries may have more time to reach these levels if they invest in defense. They can also escape a punitive measure – known as the excessive deficit procedure – if their additional expenses are linked to the defense.
The wider definition proposed – which is still only an option under study – would be a gift for countries with overly extensive budgets, such as Italy with its debt mountain or the eternally excessive expenses of France, and Governments like Poland, which is under the supervisory commission of an excessive deficit despite the strongly defense expenses.
The plan is to include in the definition “all increased investments such as the workforce or the maintenance of new equipment – not just equipment purchases,” said one of the managers who, such as Others in this article, have obtained anonymity to speak of confidential discussions.
The expansion of the definition of defense expenses is the second element of “extraordinary measures” to stimulate the military capacity of the block that the chairman of the Ursula von der Leyen commission launched during his meeting with EU leaders on Monday , as politico revealed.
The first was an emergency clause that countries could trigger in the case of events independent of their will, which would allow them to deviate from the tax roads previously agreed.
The fiscal conservative states led by Germany opposed this option at a meeting of the EU treasury chiefs this week.
Politices
