![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/GettyImages-2205408801-1024x683.jpg\")
\u201cVon der Leyen\u2019s plan is almost exclusively based on national debt from states,\u201d Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told lawmakers. | John Thys\/Getty Images<\/p>\n\u201cWe should have more time [to decide],\u201d Meloni told reporters last week, adding that the proposed April time frame to activate the mechanism was \u201ca bit too close.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cVon der Leyen\u2019s plan is almost exclusively based on national debt from states,\u201d Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told lawmakers. | John Thys\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
France, meanwhile, has indicated it does not plan to activate the clause, according to two EU diplomats. With a debt-to-GDP ratio above 110 percent, Paris is wary of spooking markets or endangering its credit rating \u2014 a key factor in how much it pays to borrow.<\/p>\n
Germany, by contrast, is expected to activate the clause to help fund its mammoth \u20ac500 billion defense upgrade. But like other triple-A rated states such as Denmark and the Netherlands, Berlin is unlikely to accept Commission loans it could raise more cheaply on its own.<\/p>\n
That has compounded anxiety among more vulnerable member states, which fear that by stepping up first to request EU loans they might signal financial weakness to the markets \u2014 triggering higher borrowing costs.<\/p>\n
Fragmentation among the EU\u2019s 27 countries \u201cmakes a difference on the market perception, which might be negative,\u201d said the senior EU diplomat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf everyone doesn\u2019t [submit the request] at the same time, the market will set the limit\u201d of how much you can spend, they added.<\/p>\n
But fiscally conservative states are not buying that argument, with the third EU diplomat accusing Southern states of \u201cplaying politics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacopo Barigazzi contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe should have more time [to decide],\u201d Meloni told reporters last week, adding that the proposed April time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[3420,768,2311,28647,7694,2825,473,7057,365,12495,28648,32,2000,299,474,36,1824,6084,478,1197,2199,2441,6657,2597,28649,5111,332,104,3053,657,49,1220,1116],"class_list":{"0":"post-53709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-bonds","9":"tag-borders","10":"tag-climate-change","11":"tag-club-med","12":"tag-critical-infrastructure","13":"tag-debt","14":"tag-defense","15":"tag-defense-budgets","16":"tag-denmark","17":"tag-development","18":"tag-dick-schoof","19":"tag-donald-trump","20":"tag-eu","21":"tag-europe","22":"tag-finance","23":"tag-france","24":"tag-germany","25":"tag-infrastructure","26":"tag-interest-rates","27":"tag-investment","28":"tag-italy","29":"tag-markets","30":"tag-migration","31":"tag-military","32":"tag-national-budgets","33":"tag-parliament","34":"tag-russia","35":"tag-spain","36":"tag-the-netherlands","37":"tag-ukraine","38":"tag-united-states","39":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","40":"tag-weapons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114407733116599219","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}