Correspondent in Brussels
The Twenty-Seven wanted at all costs to give birth in July to an agreement on the vertiginous European recovery plan to 750 billion euros.
The bloc's very bleak economic outlook demanded it.
But, to obtain the necessary approval from all the leaders, it was necessary to multiply the convolutions, maintain the ambiguities and round off the angles on some of the most sensitive points.
"
It was the best deal, because it was the only one possible
", Confided a few days ago, the ambassador Michael Clauss, permanent representative of Germany to the EU.
Some of these ambiguities are boomeranging back to Brussels.
Among them, the rule of law and the possibility, in the event of a violation, of cutting EU funds to the Member States, when for example a law turns out to weaken the independence of the judiciary or hinder media pluralism. .
This mechanism is called “rule of law conditionality” in Brussels jargon.
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