In a publication published on Wednesday 11 June, the Bruegel Institute suggested that the EU should adopt a new own resource based on a “defence spending deficit levy”.
The idea of getting EU countries lagging behind in defence spending to “contribute more to the common budget” had already been put forward at a workshop on own resources at the European Parliament on Wednesday 4 June (see EUROPE B13654A23).
The variance in investment in defence poses a “free-rider problem”,...