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France and Germany are in a standoff over an EU reform of national spending rules — meaning that a hoped-for deal by the end of the year looks increasingly less likely.
The European Commission’s overhaul of the Stability and Growth Pact, moving away from blunt, standardized debt-reduction requirements toward country-specific, medium-term targets giving countries greater time and flexibility, has run into opposition from a large Berlin-led group of governments..
As the EU moves to reimpose debt and deficit-reduction rules that were suspended during the pandemic, the reform reopens the bloc’s historic divides — between north and south and between fiscally conservative countries and those that are spendthrift. For decades, France and Germany have headed those two competing camps.
“We need common rules that are the same for everyone,” German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said on Friday before a meeting of his EU counterparts in Luxembourg. “We need a reliable path to lower deficits and also to lower debt levels overall.”
He added that Germany was “not alone” in its concerns about the Commission’s proposals, which Berlin believes would give countries and the Commission too much leeway. It wants uniform and measurable debt-reduction requirements....
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