Eurobloat #0179 • March 2025
March was the month the famous fiscal discipline evaporated. Faced with a bill it actually wanted to pay, Brussels found that its rules, its courts and its caution could all be set aside with remarkable speed, and began eyeing the contents of your savings account besides.
Folly of the Month: €800 billion, and the discipline that vanished on demand
On 4 March the Commission pitched its "ReArm Europe" plan to unlock up to €800 billion for defence, to be followed by formal measures on the 19th. For years Brussels lectured member states about deficits and rules; the instant it wanted to spend at scale, the rulebook turned to putty, the borrowing limits softened and the lawyers were sent to find a justification. Discipline that dissolves the moment it is inconvenient was never discipline at all.
1. Eyeing your savings
On 19 March came a "Savings and Investments Union", built on the complaint that €300 billion of Europeans' savings flows out of the EU each year. The unspoken ambition is to keep that money at home and steer it where Brussels prefers, which is one short step from deciding it knows better than you what to do with your own.
2. The emergency clause, abused for the occasion
To move fast, the Commission reached for Article 122 of the treaties, an emergency power that conveniently sidelines the Parliament. Using a fire exit because the front door has too many locks is precisely how powers meant for crises become everyday habits.
3. The €800 billion that is mostly not there
Look closely and the headline figure is largely loans, relaxed rules and hoped-for private money rather than cash on the table. Brussels has learned that a big round number makes a better announcement than an honest one.
4. The deficit rules, suspended for the right cause
The plan leans on letting member states bust their spending limits for defence, exempting up to 1.5% of GDP from the rules. The limits that were iron when a government wanted to fund its own priorities turn out to be optional when Brussels approves of the bill.
5. A summit of grand conclusions
On 20 March the European Council issued sweeping conclusions on competitiveness, defence and migration. The communiqué was, as ever, magnificent; the delivery is another matter for another summit.
6. Repurposing the bank for weapons
The package would also bend the European Investment Bank's mandate towards defence, loosening the rules that had kept it away from weapons. When an institution wants something, every other institution is quietly redrawn to help it pay.
7. Stopping the clock on its own green paperwork
In the same season Brussels moved to "stop the clock" on its sustainability reporting rules, delaying the burden it had so recently imposed. Easing the load is welcome; the whiplash of clamp-down-then-climb-down is the mark of an institution that legislates first and thinks later.
8. The lawyers warn it may not even be legal
Constitutional scholars and the Parliament's own legal service cautioned that funding defence through that emergency clause could breach the treaties themselves. Building your flagship policy on a contested legal base is a fine way to hand the eventual bill, and the embarrassment, to the courts.
9. Defence as the new answer to everything
Having mislaid a sense of purpose, the project rediscovered one in spending vast sums it does not have on a plan it cannot quite cost. When in doubt, Brussels reaches for a bigger number and a longer acronym.
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