Meeting at the invitation of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the leaders of the so-called ‘frugal’ Member States – Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden – called, on Thursday 27 August, for a post-2027 European Union budget that is “modernised and reformed, both in its architecture and in the way it allocates resources” and whose mobilisation will be made conditional on respect for the EU’s fundamental values and the Rule of law.
By modernisation,...