The EU Council of heads of state and government, meeting in Brussels, reached an agreement on the EU budget thanks to a compromise on the “state of right“ clause. Such a clause will be valid only for future payments and can be activated only after a ruling by the European Court of Justice. This is seen as a concession to Hungary and Poland. The agreement allows the Next Generation EU fund, a financing tool for the Green Reset, to start on January 1st as planned.
The day before, the Italian Parliament had voted in favor of the ESM treaty reform, which officially turns the ESM into a bank bailout fund ("backstop“). Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis commented that “Italy and others“ have accepted “crumbs“ in exchange of “perennial slavery.“ “The ESM without conditions is a trick inspired by Merkel. Sure, you will get billions of new loans without conditions. But next year, Brussels will notice that your debt/GDP rate has skyrocketed and will demand a giant and catastrophic austerity a posteriori.“
