{"id":417830,"date":"2025-02-04T09:47:49","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T08:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/02\/04\/allentare-patto-di-stabilita-difesa-ue\/"},"modified":"2025-02-04T12:44:57","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T11:44:57","slug":"eu-leaders-signal-loosening-the-stability-pact-for-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/02\/04\/eu-leaders-signal-loosening-the-stability-pact-for-defense\/","title":{"rendered":"EU leaders signal loosening the stability pact for defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels –\u00a0No Eurobonds. The EU may consider introducing greater and renewed\u00a0flexibility in the common budget rule to finance defense and the industry. The informal leaders’ summit that European Council President Antonio Costa convened to discuss defense produced a significant political outcome: a loosening\u00a0of the constraints of the Stability Pact<\/strong>. Germany\u00a0is yielding\u00a0— without really\u00a0yielding. German chancellor\u00a0Olaf Scholz\u00a0<\/strong>was firm\u00a0when he said\u00a0at the end of the proceedings that “the European Union has no\u00a0prospect of issuing common<\/strong>\u00a0debt.” At the same time, he acknowledges the need\u00a0to act\u00a0to stimulate a sector that has suddenly become strategic and, therefore, indispensable: “It is rather a matter of creating more flexibility for individual countries<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

Here,\u00a0Germany — always mindful of budget rules their enforcement, breaks a taboo. It stood its ground\u00a0after its firm ‘nein’ to Eurobonds for defense while also trying\u00a0to appease\u00a0the German electorate ahead of the Feb. 23 elections<\/a>\u00a0that could reshape the German and European political landscape. With AfD\u00a0gaining momentum,\u00a0Scholz can return home and claim he has not created new common debt and ensure that Germany will not pay the financial burdens of others.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
German chancellor Olaf Scholz at the summit of EU leaders [Brussels, February 3,\u00a02025. Photo: European Council]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The real work begins now, and it’s all for the European Commission. “We will look at how best to use all the flexibility we can within the <\/strong>[stability] pact, and there is a lot of it, to favor defense spending,” EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen <\/strong>confirmed\u00a0<\/strong>at the press conference held late in the evening.<\/p>\n

\u00a0After all, the meeting of heads of state and government does not produce much more than a call to explore “common options and innovative tools” to “do more, faster, better, and together” on defense, Costa explains without going into too much detail. This effort, however, will\u00a0involve greater reliance on\u00a0the European Investment Bank (EIB) and restructuring the functioning of the European Defense Agency (EDA)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Germany reiterates its ‘no’ to new joint debt but is open to the possibility of exploring renewed flexibility for countries. Von der Leyen: “There is plenty in the pact, we will explore it.” Greater and different role for the EIB and the EDA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":417826,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681,25727],"tags":[27336,25747,27175,25741,27338,26268,25740,27867,25884],"class_list":["post-417830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-in-the-spotlight","tag-debt-en","tag-vertice-dei-leader-en-2","tag-olaf-scholz-en","tag-accounts-public-en","tag-spending-public-en","tag-pact-of-stability-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417830"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417847,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417830\/revisions\/417847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}