{"id":428563,"date":"2025-06-03T18:51:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T16:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/06\/03\/paesi-frugali-danimarca-difesa-bilancio\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T19:31:24","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T17:31:24","slug":"budget-frugal-club-no-longer-the-right-place-for-us-denmarks-turnaround-in-the-name-of-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/06\/03\/budget-frugal-club-no-longer-the-right-place-for-us-denmarks-turnaround-in-the-name-of-defence\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget, frugal club “no longer the right place for us”: Denmark’s turnaround in the name of defence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Once upon a time, there was the ‘New Hanseatic League<\/a>‘, and Copenhagen was the queen of the frugal in Europe, of the efficient and\u00a0thrifty countries, opposed\u00a0to any significant increase in the EU budget, to which they are ‘net contributors’.\u00a0But that is no longer the case:\u00a0Denmark says goodbye to Austria, Sweden, and the Netherlands<\/strong>\u2014plus Finland and the Baltic states\u2014and jumps on the bandwagon of those who want to widen the bloc’s strict spending limits.<\/span>\u00a0“Being part of the Frugal Four\u00a0is no longer the right place for us,” said Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen<\/strong> today. The reason is quickly stated: the need to ‘rearm Europe’.<\/p>\n

In the midst of the work on the new\u00a0long-term budget<\/a> of the Union for the period 2028-2035 (the Commission’s proposal is expected in July), Frederiksen’s historic turnaround is even more significant. Denmark is indeed preparing to take over the reins of the Council of the European Union<\/strong>, which it will lead until the end of the year. It will therefore be the Danish presidency that will seek agreement among the member states on the size and distribution of the budget proposed by the executive.<\/p>\n

In a\u00a0press conference<\/a> together with Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament\u2014the other institution that will have to give the green light to the Union’s multiannual budget\u2014Frederiksen made it clear: ”
\nLast time, we had a leading role in the Frugal Four. Next time, we’ll have a leading role in another group, because things have changed and the world is changing rapidly. And we have to find the right answers to all these challenges in front of us.”<\/p>\n

<\/a>When the term ‘frugal’ was last coined, it was in 2019. Europe had yet to experience the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the Russian threat, the energy crisis, and Washington’s trade blackmail.<\/span> Now, Frederiksen is convinced that\u00a0“the most important thing is to rearm Europe<\/strong>.” And Denmark is ready to break the taboo of economic rigour, as evidenced by the fact that it is already one of 16 countries that have requested the activation of the Stability Pact’s national safeguard clause to increase its military expenditure.<\/p>\n

The need to protect ourselves in an increasingly assertive\u2014and aggressive\u2014geopolitical environment “is the starting point and conclusion of all discussions,” the Social Democratic leader added. This means that “all other priorities and principles must be addressed after we have made the necessary decisions on how to rearm.” Less frugal, but not less\u00a0careful and strict: Frederiksen warned that “We will always be tough in the budget negotiations<\/strong>. We do not want money to be spent unnecessarily, on things that are not necessary for Europe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A month before the start of the Danish EU Council Presidency, and the European Commission’s proposal on the multiannual budget, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announces: “The world is changing rapidly, the most important thing is to rearm Europe”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":428525,"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":[25705],"tags":[31261,30062,29418,28082,26656,25759],"class_list":["post-428563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-budget-in-2","tag-danimarca-at","tag-mette-frederiksen-and","tag-mff-en","tag-budget-pluriennial-en","tag-roberta-metsolaat"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428563","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=428563"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428572,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428563\/revisions\/428572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}