The French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, is advocating for making the European Commission’s debt mechanism permanent at EU27 level to finance the Next Generation EU Recovery Plan.
“For the heaviest investments, in particular in energy transition, we propose that the joint debt issue carried out to finance the 750 billion euro recovery plan should become a permanent European financing system”, said Mr Le Maire in an interview, on Saturday 3 July, with the daily Le Parisien.
During the negotiations on the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework, the pro-active countries overcame the reluctance of the more frugal ones to accept the Next Generation EU plan by saying that it was a temporary initiative born of an extraordinary circumstance arising from Covid-19.
France wants to make this experiment permanent, which will take the form of European aid payments to the first national recovery plans in July, so that Europe remains in contact with the United States and China in terms of technological innovation.
And it is ready to give guarantees. “In exchange, each Member State would agree to be more responsible in terms of public spending”, Mr Le Maire said, referring to the reflection on the evolution of European budgetary rules. He also envisaged the inclusion in the French constitution of a “golden rule that will provide for an overall volume of spending over 5 years”. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)