صاحب‌خبر - Putting aside the petulant Giorgia Meloni, who drove up to the steps of the Élysée Palace in a Maserati one hour late wearing a white coat and a pose designed to reveal her disdain at being anywhere near Emmanuel Macron, most of those attending the Paris summit on Ukraine alighted on two ideas: joint defence bonds or a defence escape clause. They are two different policy options, and one much bolder than the other. Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline would not be able to make any use of either of them, but they offer an opening to unlock the levels of defence spending Europe is going to require if its postwar dependence on the US has truly come to an end. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said at the Munich Security Conference this weekend that she would propose to activate the escape clause in the bloc’s fiscal rules in an attempt to “substantially” boost member states’ defence investment. It was previously triggered for three years during the Covid pandemic, allowing countries to spend their way out of the crisis. EU member states are obliged under the bloc’s Stability and Growth Pact to implement a fiscal policy that aims to keep government deficit under 3% of GDP and debt under 60% of GDP or face penalties, including fines. Trump’s return means UK must swiftly find a way to increase defence spending | Peter Walker Read more An escape clause for defence spending, which officials have indicated could be activated for more than one year, has received the support of EU finance ministers meeting in Poland and the enthusiastic backing of the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who also wants increases in German defence spending exempted from Germany’s tough debt brake clause. Meloni’s finance minister, Giancarlo Giorgetti, has already described the escape clause as a victory for Italy. With its high public debt ratio and low economic growth, Italy is behind most other European countries in defence spending as a proportion of GDP. But Luigi Scazzieri, from the Centre of European Reform, questions whether the escape clause will, in reality, trigger a bonanza. Many states are already in breach of EU debt rules (Belgium, France, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovakia are now targeted under the commission’s excessive deficit procedure) and do not necessarily need EU agreement to increase defence spending. Poland has had a large increase in defence spend, but it has overall low debt and high growth. Scazzieri said a debt escape clause could help at the margins but it was the proposals for joint defence bonds that had the potential to raise far more money. The difficulty is that Germany has historically opposed the EU issuing joint debt for which all countries are liable. But the taboo over EU joint borrowing was broken during the pandemic, when member states agreed to establish an €800bn facility to provide a mix of grants and low-interest loans to individual EU countries – an idea initiated by one of Meloni’s predecessors, Mario Draghi. One of the most persistent opponents of joint debt then was the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, now the Nato secretary general. 1:38 US no longer ‘primarily focused’ on Europe’s security, says Pete Hegseth – video Bonds could be issued either by the EU or through a special vehicle that would allow the UK to be involved, and get round the requirement of securing support from Hungary. Other countries that might oppose EU-wide defence bonds are Cyprus, Malta, Ireland and Austria. Friedrich Merz, the most likely future German chancellor, kept the idea of joint defence bonds on the table at Munich – a reversal of his previous rigid opposition. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Headlines Europe Free newsletter A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day Enter your email address Sign upPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion If a special defence vehicle was used, the bonds would be issued with national rather than EU-wide guarantees. Increasingly in European defence matters, coalitions of the willing are going to be required in order to include the UK. The UK has said it is willing to sign a security pact with the EU, but it is not clear whether a voluntary inter-governmental plan for bonds would be included in a potential high-level pact. Previous versions of this bond, revealed by the Financial Times in December, might aim to raise as much as €500bn. In interviews in the margins of the Munich Security Conference, Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, spoke of a €700bn package being released after the German elections. “We will launch a large package that has never been seen in this dimension before,” she told Bloomberg TV. “Similar to the euro or the corona crisis, there is now a financial package for security in Europe. That will come in the near future.” Baerbock may either be referencing this inter-governmental plan, or exaggerating the consequences of an escape clause. Either way, the urgency of the discussions have reached a new pitch, and it might be in the interests of Italy, and even Meloni, if her friendship with Trump and dislike of Macron did not prevent her from becoming a more enthusiastic participant in the debate.∎​