ROMA (ITALPRESS) – “The European Commission communication of 19 March 2025 has established that aggression against Ukraine and the threat to European security constitute exceptional circumstances to activate the national clause, inviting all member states to use these margins of flexibility in a coordinated manner, in order to produce the maximum impact in terms of adjustment of the European Union’s defence and synergies of the sector’s productive sectors, these budget spaces are therefore granted 20 years This was said by the Minister of Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, during communications to the House on the procedure for the activation of the national safeguard clause.
The EU’s communication on the use of space for defence and energy flexibility provides a total limit of 1.5% of GDP, for each of the years from 2025 to 2028. “From the available state information, it would not seem admissible, differently to the defence clause, expenses recorded in the following years of 2028 – added Giorgetti –. Moreover, additional measures have been allowed exclusively from 28 February 2026 and are aimed at improving structurally the safety of the energy system of the Member States, favouring the transition, reducing dependence on fossil fuels and therefore on foreign supply. Measures are excluded which aim to attenuate, only provisionally, the effects of the current crisis, such as the reduction of excise duties or other forms of direct and indirect subsidies and energy products of fossil origin.”.
“The government, on the basis of the information available at the moment, intends, with the preventive involvement of the Parliament, to start the interlocutions with the European Commission for the presentation of a plan that foresees, in the three years covered by the Nec, an overall increase of the expenditure for energy security interventions of approximately 0.6 % of GDP and for the security and defense of approximately 0.9% of GDP”, said the minister.
“The European Commission has invited member states that wish to benefit from the flexibility areas, already in the evaluation of the public finance document of 2027, to submit the request for activation or extension of the Nec, National Escape Clause, by mid-August 2026. The request must provide a maximum list of the measures which the Member State intends to finance and a preliminary estimate of the expected costs,” he explained.
Giorgetti added: The request for activation of the clause may be subject to updates and integrations and the Member State will undertake at the time of the request to provide, twice a year, i.e. by 15 April and by 15 October, that is, in correspondence, respectively, of the instruments of updating the budgetary documents, information useful to the monitoring of the implementation of the interventions, so that the European Commission can take into account in its own forecasts and in the surveillance evaluations”.
– photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
