Trenches are being dug at Ecofin on the Stability Pact. The Franco-German struggle

Lindner against Le Maire at the meeting of economy ministers, with the first wanting common rules and the second asking for flexibility. Meloni’s threat, which tries to subordinate the Mes to milder debt constraints, has been ignored by the others

Brussels. The reform of the Stability and Growth Pact will be decided by Germany and France, after the Ecofin has become a battlefield made up of “trenches” on the proposal of the Commission for the revision of the economic governance of the European Union. The clash within the Franco-German couple was publicly staged today in Luxembourg. “If we want to keep the euro and the single market stable, if we want to remain competitive, we need fiscal rules that stabilize public finances,” said the German finance minister, Christian Lindner: “We need common rules that are the same for everyone, we need a reliable path to reduce deficits and also to lower debt levels”. Its French counterpart, Bruno Le Maire, he immediately replied that reintroducing “automatic and uniform rules” for everyone in the Stability Pact would be “an economic mistake and a political mistake”. When it was done in the past “it led to the recession” and doing it again now “would mean ignoring the need to respect the sovereignty of member states,” Le Maire said. The other twenty-five member states are divided into two camps which, with greater or lesser intensity, support one or the other position. But in fact they are out of the game, including Italy.