European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday announced the suspension of EU budgetary discipline rules, a new measure that will allow member states to spend as much as necessary to combat the economic consequences of the coronavirus.
" Today, and this is new and has never been done before, we are triggering the general notwithstanding clause " which allows these rules to be suspended, she said in a video posted on Twitter. " This means that national governments can inject as much into the economy as they need to, " she added. " We are relaxing the budgetary rules to allow them to do so ."
The 27 EU finance ministers have yet to validate the suspension in a videoconference next week. Concretely, this clause makes it possible to temporarily derogate from the Stability and Growth Pact, the text which fixes the budgetary rules for the States having adopted the single currency.
Created in 2011, in the midst of the eurozone crisis, this clause had never been activated until then. Among the obligations that member states will no longer have to comply with is the famous rule requiring their public deficit to remain below 3% of their gross domestic product (GDP).
Brussels had already promised last week a " maximum flexibility " in the application of the Pact, a breath of fresh air for Italy, with already exhausted finances, but which was not considered sufficient in the face of the disastrous economic consequences of the pandemic. Von der Leyen also said that she welcomed " the decisive action announced by the European Central Bank this week ": a massive 750 billion euro plan to support the eurozone.
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This adds to the firepower we need in Europe to support the economy, "she said, saying that" the Union's budget "would take" its share ". She cited in particular the provision by Brussels of 37 billion euros, a sum coming from the reorientation of 8 billion of existing funds, which should make it possible to raise 29.