MNI BRIEF: EU Pushes Back Against German Fiscal Revision Call
MNI (LONDON) - EU finance ministers pushed back against Germany's call for a review of the bloc's fiscal rules to allow a long-term exemption for defence spending, stressing the continuing importance of fiscal sustainability and market credibility, Polish Finance Minister and the current EU chair of the ministers' meetings Andrzej Domanski said.
The ECOFIN ministers had discussed a possible ten-year escape clause for defence today as well as the Commission's four-year approach, which exempts defence spending only for a period until it has reached a new, higher structural level of spending.
Commission VP Valdis Dombrovskis also told reporters that "quite a few ministers" had emphasised the importance of fiscal discipline in the talks today. The Commission has continued to defend its own four-year proposal, saying that this strikes the right balance between the need to address security concerns and maintain fiscal discipline by making the exemption time limited and so aligned with the current rules.