On Monday 28 April, the European Commission confirmed that it had received a letter from Germany officially requesting activation of the national escape clause in the Stability and Growth Pact (see EUROPE 13612/25).
“Germany is the first country” in the European Union to have done so, said Balazs Ujvari, the EU institution’s budget spokesperson. He added that the Commission was actively engaged in discussions with all Member States with a view to facilitating a coordinated activation, in late April or early May, of this escape clause, justified by the rearmament effort that Europe is imposing on itself in order to face up to the Russian threat.
Slovenia and Portugal have announced their intention to join the movement.
Mr Ujvari recalled the existence of “three principles” governing the use of the Pact’s flexibility, namely: - military expenditure falls within Eurostat’s ‘Cofog’ classification (see EUROPE 13597/12); - the level of additional annual expenditure will be capped at 1.5% of national GDP; - the activation period for the clause will be limited to four years, between 2025 and 2029.
A Member State that has activated the Pact’s national escape clause will have to modify its multiannual budgetary programme designed to maintain/place its public finances on a sustainable path. In this respect, Mr Ujvari noted that beyond the four-year period of activation of the clause, the countries concerned will have to establish new budgetary priorities to ensure the sustainability of their public debt.
The European Commission will provide its analysis of the activation of the Pact's national escape clause when it presents its country-specific budgetary and economic policy recommendations for the 2026 budgets on Wednesday June 4. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)