{"id":420649,"date":"2025-03-06T22:17:17","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T21:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/03\/06\/leader-piano-ue-difesa-meloni\/"},"modified":"2025-03-07T14:39:24","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T13:39:24","slug":"leaders-back-von-der-leyens-defense-plan-meloni-italy-will-not-divert-cohesion-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/03\/06\/leaders-back-von-der-leyens-defense-plan-meloni-italy-will-not-divert-cohesion-funds\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaders back von der Leyen’s defense plan. Meloni: “Italy will not divert Cohesion funds”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels–In a European summit that overcame unanimity of the conclusions on Ukraine because of the Hungarian veto, EU heads of state and government agreed\u00a0on the other big issue on the agenda: European defense. There was united support for the guidelines of the\u00a0Rearm Europe<\/a> plan <\/strong>that\u00a0Ursula von der Leyen presented and a call to urgently explore its feasibility.<\/p>\n

In particular, the leaders “welcome” the possibility of suspending Stability Pact rules for\u00a0military spending. On the activation “in a coordinated manner” of the national safeguard clause<\/strong>, the 27 member states refrain from setting specific limits\u00a0and\u00a0numbers,\u00a0a point of contention\u00a0between frugal countries and those who\u00a0have always asked Brussels for more spending freedom. It will be up to the European Commission to determine how and by how much to exceed the thresholds in order to reach a consensus. However,\u00a0Germany’s historic shift\u00a0and the more open stance to dialogue of some of the stricter capitals “is opening a debate on a comprehensive review of the Stability and Growth Pact,” cheered Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.<\/p>\n

\"Ursula<\/a>
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presents the Competitiveness Compass, January 29, 2025 (photo: Bendo\/European Commission data)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the conclusions<\/a> written by the European Council, The 27 member states “invite” the European Commission to propose “new sources of funding” through “additional possibilities and incentives offered” under “relevant EU programs.” Between the lines is the controversial idea of allowing diverting part of Cohesion funds toward the\u00a0arms race<\/strong>. A point on which Meloni wanted to dispel any doubts: “I will propose to the Parliament to make it clear from the outset that\u00a0Italy does not intend to divert Cohesion funds —<\/strong> which are very important for us — to the purchase of weapons,” she told the press during the summit.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meloni claimed to have supposedly\u00a0fought\u00a0to rule out the possibility of such resources being “forcibly diverted to defense spending.” However,\u00a0 in presenting the plan two days ago,\u00a0von der Leyen herself had explained that she wanted to “propose\u00a0further possibilities and incentives to member states that decide, if they want to use cohesion policy programs<\/strong>, to increase defense spending.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As for the 150 billion loan facility\u00a0to member states guaranteed by the EU budget, the 27 states “invite\u00a0the Council (the economy ministers of the 27,\u00a0 Ed.) to examine this proposal as a matter of urgency.” The fact that this measure, as well as the activation of the national safeguard clause of the Stability Pact, “have in some way to do with debt,” according to Meloni, “is a risk that needs to be taken into account” for countries like Italy that already have little fiscal space. The premier announced that Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti would propose to his European counterparts that they “consider\u00a0European guarantee instruments for private investment<\/strong> on the InvestEu model.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unanimous green light for European defense summit conclusions. Leaders “welcome” activation of the Stability Pact’s national safeguard clause for military spending. Italian PM warns, “All measures that in some way have to do with debt”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":420635,"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],"tags":[30670,27805,27349,27335,26064,27722,30664,27075,28982],"class_list":["post-420649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-politica-di-coesione-en","tag-defense","tag-council-en","tag-giorgia-meloni-en","tag-italy-en-2","tag-rearm-europe-en","tag-security-en","tag-pact-stability-and-growth-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420649","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\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420649"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":420683,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420649\/revisions\/420683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}