After negotiations lasting almost 16 hours, negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council reached an agreement on the reform of the Stability Pact.
The European Chamber gets a little more space for public investments and more margins to deviate spending paths in the event of exceptional circumstances.
The new rules will start immediately: the States will have to present the first four-year spending plans, extendable up to seven, by 20 September this year.
To make room for investments, the EP has obtained that national expenditure relating to the co-financing of projects financed by the EU be separated from the overall calculation of public expenditure.
Furthermore, investments already started in EU priority areas such as climate and digital transition, energy security and defense will be taken into consideration in the Commission's report on deviation from spending plans, giving space to States to avoid the excessive deficit procedure.
The European Chamber also obtains that in the event of exceptional circumstances capable of determining a significant impact on the accounts, it will be possible to ask to deviate from the agreed spending plans for a defined period of time but which may be extendable up to a year, even more than once.
In the end, however, a mediation was reached between the positions reached in December by the 27 EU member states in the Council and the European Chamber with respect to the European Commission's legislative proposal of last April to review the common understandings on European public accounts.
The last obstacle to the negotiation was precisely the European Parliament's request to guarantee greater space for public investments.
However, the margin for maneuver of the 27 was almost nil after the difficult balance reached a month ago, at the end of exhausting negotiations between 'frugal' and non-frugal countries.
The reform focuses on multi-annual spending plans over which states will have autonomy, except for the adjustment objective or 'technical trajectory' which will be calculated by the Commission.
Here in the negotiations, at the pressing request of the 'frugal' - Germany in the lead - "safeguards" were added to commit the countries to a certain rate of debt reduction (of 0.5 and 1% per year respectively for those exceeding 60 % and 90% of the debt/GDP ratio) and of the public deficit (to bring it to 1.5% of GDP, compared to the 3% of GDP set by the treaties).
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