Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte opposes new EU debt in response to Ukraine war – POLITICO
PARIS – Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Wednesday rejected the idea of creating a new European fund financed through common debt to deal with the economic consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Rutte said he doesn’t need – at least for now – for a new version of the EU’s historic debt pandemic recovery fund, called NextGenerationEU.
“At this stage, I disagree with point 2 of NextGenerationEU,” Rutte told reporters in Paris ahead of a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.
The Dutch prime minister said it would be better to use the resources already available in the recovery fund, than to issue more European debt.
Rutte says a new debt fund means “one country [such] like the Netherlands will spend a lot of money not on ourselves but on others. I think that’s justified in the NextGenEU but now with all the problems we’re also facing… that’s another debate now. ”
He added that “there are a lot of instruments out there and we should make the most of them.”
The European Commission is evaluating options for financing measures to deal with the economic consequences of the war, including the issuance of new joint debt. France, for one, has shown that they are very open to the idea.
“We must not deny this option,” Clément Beaune, France’s minister for EU affairs, told POLITICO on Tuesday, saying that increased military efforts would have to be financed in this way. or otherwise.
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