(Tiper Stock Exchange) – A too “soft” Stability Pact: Berlin look at the new rules announced yesterday by the EU Commission with whose eye it has no intention of automatically accepting offers.
After all, the German Finance Minister said it openly Christian Lindner. “The proposals of the European Commission do not yet meet Germany’s needs”, he said, explaining that “No one should think that Germany automatically accepts the proposals. We will only accept rules that allow for a reliable path towards debt reduction and public finance stability”. The reaction of the Netherlands, where, however, the government lets it be known that it wants “the new rules to lead to an ambitious reduction of the debt and a greater debt sustainability for highly indebted countries”.
Yesterday Brussels lifted the veil on the new European rules on public finances: agreed plans with the European Commission from the EU states indicating only a spending path capable of permanently reducing the public debt. No actual numerical targets on deleveraging. The parameters of the treaties remain unchanged which set a ceiling for the deficit at 3% of GDP and for the debt at 60% of GDP. For countries above these values, the European executive will thus provide “technical trajectories” of expenditure with the aim, once again, of bringing down the debt. States that are instead in excessive (nominal) deficits will in any case have to automatically guarantee a structural adjustment of the minimum annual deficit equal to 0.5% of GDP, until the overrun is returned.
The Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti hails the Commission’s legislative reform proposal as “a step forward”: it will make it possible not to return to the old pact, suspended since the beginning of the pandemic thanks to the safeguard clause. Giorgetti, however, does not hide his disappointment at the failed rule of the ‘golden rule’, that is, to deduct strategic investments from the accounts.
“We strongly asked for the exclusion of investment expenses, including those typical of the digital Pnrr and green deal, from the calculation of the target expenses on which compliance with the parameters is measured. We understand that this is not the case.”