ROME (Reuters) -A proposal to exclude defence spending from European Union budget rules is a first step, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Wednesday, insisting that more was needed to beef up Europe’s contribution to NATO.
Earlier this month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she would propose exempting defence from the EU fiscal rulebook, as Europe grapples with U.S. pressure to pay more for its own security.
Von der Leyen’s initiative “is a first step. I think this first step should be followed by other solutions,” Meloni said at a press conference in Rome with her Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson.
The U.S. demands are a problem for highly-indebted Italy.
The country is projecting its defence spending will hit 1.61% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2027, the economy minister said in November, far below a current 2% NATO goal, which U.S. President Donald Trump wants raised to 5%.
Italy has called on the EU to use common debt to pay for higher defence spending – traditionally anathema to the more fiscally conservative northern European EU members such as Germany and the Netherlands.
Speaking about the three-year-old Russia-Ukraine war, which Trump has pledged to end quickly, Meloni reiterated that security guarantees had to be offered to Kyiv involving both the U.S. and Europe.
“I believe that these security guarantees should be implemented in the context of the (NATO) Atlantic Alliance, because I think that this is the best framework for guaranteeing a peace that is neither fragile nor temporary,” she said.
(Reporting by Angelo Amante, editing by Gavin Jones, Alvise Armellini and Philippa Fletcher)
