Spending the Safe on healthcare and poverty: why the broad-based resolution is merely an election manifesto

The resolution tabled in the Chamber of Deputies by the PD, M5S and AVS has one merit: it clarifies what a large section of the opposition now means when it talks about Europe. Not a set of rules and tools to be used for the purposes for which they were designed, but a place to which one can turn to request a reallocation of resources when the intended use does not coincide with one’s own programme. It also makes clear how the broad coalition led by the M5S is more concerned with political propaganda than with a serious political proposal.

The broad-based resolution stipulates that the budgetary deviation ‘shall be directed exclusively towards combating absolute poverty, funding public healthcare, supporting households and businesses affected by the energy crisis, and making the investments necessary to reduce dependence on fossil fuels’. At the same time, it ‘excludes the allocation of available resources to military expenditure’. The paradox is clear. The Commission has allowed the application of the national safeguard clause precisely to enable Member States to temporarily increase defence spending without breaching the net expenditure path. It subsequently proposed a limited extension of this to energy security: up to 0.3 per cent of GDP per year and 0.6 per cent in total over the three-year period 2026–2028, still within the overall ceiling of 1.5 per cent. Part of the opposition’s demands – those relating to energy – may therefore fall within the new European framework. Healthcare and the fight against poverty, whilst legitimate objectives, do not. Above all, one cannot pretend that the instrument was created for anything other than defence. The PD, M5S and AVS are essentially calling for a clause to be activated for purposes not envisaged by Brussels, whilst prohibiting its use for the very purpose for which Brussels intended it.

The problem is not that we want more funding for hospitals, households and businesses. The problem is presenting a wish list as if it were a public finance proposal, without specifying which changes to European rules are intended to be secured, with which allies, within what timeframe and with what consequences for the debt. A parliamentary resolution should provide concrete guidance for the government’s actions. This, however, resembles an election manifesto: healthcare yes, poverty yes, energy yes, defence no.

Furthermore, the resolution also refers to ‘taking action to move beyond the uncoordinated rearmament plans of national armies, with a view to building a genuine common European defence’... So, one is led to wonder, why say no to Safe, which specifically provides for funds earmarked for joint European projects as part of its rearmament programme? Here too, rather than a parliamentary resolution, one gets the impression of being faced with a political propaganda leaflet.

Here is the full text of the broad-based resolution.