Disagreement in sight with Berlin. France will demand that “flexibility” be introduced in the pace of reducing excessive public deficits in the EU for countries investing in the ecological transition, artificial intelligence or defence, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday .
While the debate on the new EU budget rules focuses on the obligation of countries with excessive deficits to reduce their structural deficit by 0.5 points per year, the minister estimated that a flexibility of 0.2 points in this rule would be “reasonable.”
This issue constitutes “the 10%” with which he does not agree with his German counterpart, Christian Lindner, before the debate that opens on Thursday afternoon in Brussels. The stability and growth pact “must focus on the future and not the past,” Bruno Le Maire told reporters before leaving Paris to attend a crucial Ecofin meeting in Brussels.
“Compete with the United States, China, India”
For him, the EU must recognize the possibility that countries with excessive deficits will reduce them less forcefully if they invest in these areas. It is “a red line that France will not cross.” “We want this incentive to invest and make structural reforms, whatever the financial situation” of the country, he insisted: “the future of the European continent is at stake.”
“It is a very strong personal conviction: it is now that the next three decades of France and Europe are at stake,” he insisted, pointing out that with his counterparts they must be “political, not technical.” “Otherwise, Europe will be left out of the 21st century race and will not be able to compete with the United States, China, India and the emerging powers,” she argued.
Source: BFM TV
