NATO “proposes” to participate in shaping European Union countries’ economic policy

To date we have known that the updated Stability Pact is – with the supervision of the Commission – the most advanced institutional instrument of fiscal consolidation-convergence in the EU. Or to put it more simply, it is the institution that aspires to influence/indirectly define the government’s fiscal policy, without abolishing its ‘national’ character. In the sense that it is the national Parliaments who decide by voting or voting against (e.g. France) the budget, but this is since the Commission has proposed the limits for changing public expenditure adopted by the government. This is how the Budget passed for 2025 in the Greek Parliament was formed with a nominal expenditure increase limit of 3%… In this context, of course, the ECB contributes to the final formulation of the ‘national’ fiscal policy, which, together with the Commission, monitors the development of debt. And so the ‘limit’ of public expenditure is formed to ensure the service of public debt. We thought so. But it’s not exactly like that. In the duo of the Commission (guard of compliance with the Stability Pact) and the ECB, it seems that it is also aiming to participate in … NATO, creating a fiscal “troika” for the fiscal policy of EU member countries. Why do we say that? The answer is as follows. In Eco-classics following the statements made by former Prime Minister of the Netherlands and now Gen. NATO Secretary, Mr Mark Rute, on the allocation of public expenditure by EU Member States, we expected some very discreet comments or statements from the officials of the Commission or at least the European Parliament, reminding him that elsewhere it is decided in EU countries where and how much the public revenues of a Member State will be spent. We waited, we waited, but no comments from any European agents in Brussels or elsewhere. Let us remind ourselves of what Mr Rute said and why we say that NATO is “hoping” to participate in shaping the economic policy of EU member countries. In his last speech in Brussels, Mr Rute, before the European Union’s joint foreign and defence committees, said that EU member countries should increase the production of weapons and defence tools drastically. In order to do this it is necessary to reduce ‘easy costs’ (!), i.e. to ‘reduction of expenditure on pensions and health’. And why not, it may still have to be “acceptable to raise taxes”. According to Mr Rute, spending more resources on defence today “means less spending on other priorities. But it can make a big difference to our future security…”. The interesting thing is that the “enemy” facing Europe and against which Russia must be equipped is Russia, which in 2025 “expensed” more than $140 billion for equipment spending, while in the same period Europe has spent a total of something more than $310 – 320 billion. How much must European governments spend on weapons even if it is necessary for them to cut costs for Health, Education, pensions, wages, etc.? About 5% of GDP, that is, more than twice as much GDP as the target still sought, is 2% of GDP. And just so we don’t forget, as far as the possibility of making a ‘European NATO’ as Macron has suggested, Mr. Rute made it clear that this is not happening, because in this case we should spend at least 8% of GDP without the US in NATO… Something wrong? Or here in Ecoclassics, don’t we understand something?