Quote this publication 

Jaillet, P. “Europe’s “rearmament” and the programmed obsolescence of its fiscal framework”, Brief, Jacques Delors Institute, March 2025

On 6 March 2025, the Extraordinary European Council approved most of the package of measures proposed by the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, aimed to finance an estimated €800 billion increase in military spending . The key decision is to allow Member States to derogat from Community’s budgetary rules under the “safeguard clause”, which can be activated by Member States in the event of “exceptional circumstances beyond their control having a major impact on public finances”. The “rearmament” effort echoes Donald Trump’s call for the European Union (EU) to increase its military spending to 5% of GDP. In an interview published in the Financial Times on February 14, President Macron described as the budgetary rules “obsolete” (“from another age”, he had already declared in 2019 in an interview with The Economist)