Sixteen countries of the European Union will request to be allowed to temporarily not apply the rules on budgetary stability in order to be able to make defense expenditures, this was announced by the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU, quoted by BNT.
Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland have requested the activation of the budgetary derogation clause, announced Polish Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski.
Earlier, the European Commission announced 12 countries that have requested a relaxation of their budgetary rules - Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Slovenia. The Polish Presidency then announced that there were 16 countries, including Bulgaria.
Last month, the European Commission presented a White Paper on the Future of European Defense, in which one of the proposals is for member states to use up to 1.5 percent of their GDP over 4 years for military spending, without fear of violating European budgetary rules that set a ceiling on deficits and government debts.
EU countries that want to rearm due to the Russian threat and the risk of a reduction in US commitments to the European continent had until the end of April to declare their intentions.
The EC's proposal to loosen budgetary rules should allow the mobilization of up to 650 billion euros by 2030 for rearmament on the continent. The twenty-seven member states have increased their defense spending by over 31 percent since 2021. and they reached a total of 326 billion euros in 2024.