The proposal prepared by the European Commission to allow countries to borrow more if money is dedicated to military expenses will include a technical definition of the items to which they can be attributed as such and that will limit the government’s ability … by Pedro Sánchez to exchange them in imaginative way to disguise disbursements into games that may have an open interpretation. Commission sources confirm that the criterion to determine if it is really military expenses will be the standard known as classification of government functions, (COFOG) that leaves very little space for interpretation.
The Commission provides that practically all countries will be hosted by the mechanism of the escape clause of the stability pact because that will allow them a margin of extraordinary budget maneuver outside the threat of a infringement procedure for excessive deficit. But at the same time, the executive that presides over Ursula von der Leyen intends to do everything in his hand to make the different governments use this resource with the clear objective that is at the origin of the initiative and that it is precisely to rearm to Europe, that is, to make the different countries armen and invest in the development of a European military industry in coordination with all countries.
The COFOG classification was prepared in 1999 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and uses the UN, as well as Eurostat, the EU agency dedicated to statistical studies, to prepare its reports. At the last meeting of the Council of Ministers of Economy and Finance (ECOFIN) last Tuesday, the representatives of national governments reaffirmed that the criteria for classify to increase the deficit randomly.
The Spanish minister, Carlos Body, tried to accept expanding that definition and came to put in the Defense concept spectrum protection against climate change, which had no support. But it is true that in the EU everyone likes to have the possibility that the rules are flexible and the most subject to possible interpretation. However, the ministers recorded in their final statement that there is a “shared opinion” that it is better to maintain the current definition because, as a spokesman for the European Commission recalled “if the regulatory framework had to be changed, that would need a lot of time, from which it follows that maintaining the current rules has many advantages.”
On the other hand, the same sources of the Commission insist on pointing out that the absence of a budget would not be an inconvenience since European legislation has not taken into account that there may be governments that keep their countries with the accounts extended for several years, as is the case of the coalition cabinet directed by Pedro Sánchez. “The Spanish budget of 2023 was approved by the Commission and the rules foresee that if it is extended it is considered to be automatically approved.” That is why Spain has not presented its budget plan in the past fall, as it should have done, something that is expected for exceptional cases in which the celebration of elections interferes with the political and institutional calendar, not for governments that refuse to do so because they know they would not have parliamentary support for it and does not have the support of their allies.
However, the European rules do oblige the Government to present before the end of April the report on the progress of their structural expense control plans, in which the fate of public money has to be defined by sectors and items, so that the commission can distinguish the military expenses that would be outside the calculation of the deficit if the escape clause is applied.
In its summary version, the COFOG expenses classification recognizes concepts such as «military defense; the civil defense; Contribution to international military organizations, research and development in defense and defense expenses not included in other items ».
The last section would seem that it leaves a certain margin to the interpretation, although in the most detailed version of the COFOG it is specified that in this section of expenses not included expressly refers to: «Administration, operation or support of activities such as the formulation, administration, coordination and supervision of policies, plans, programs and general budgets in defense matters; preparation and application of defense legislation; production and dissemination of general information, technical documentation and defense statistics; etc.” that do not include in any case the fight against climate change.
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