The European Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, sought to strike a balance on Thursday 24 February between the need for EU Member States to “gradually and realistically” achieve a consolidation of public finances in order to absorb the public debt accumulated since the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, and the need to free up budgetary leeway to stimulate the ecological and technological transitions necessary to achieve the objective of climate neutrality by...