- China's Jia brings film spanning love, change over decades to Busan
- Paying out disaster relief before climate catastrophe strikes
- Chinese shares drop on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- SE Asian summit seeks progress on Myanmar civil war
- How climate funds helped Peru's women beekeepers stay afloat
- Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded as wars rage
- Pacific island nations swamped by global drug trade
- AI-aided research, new materials eyed for Nobel Chemistry Prize
- Mozambique elects new president in tense vote
- The US economy is solid: Why are voters gloomy?
- Balkan summit to rally support for struggling Ukraine
- New stadium gives Real Madrid a headache
- Alonso, Manaea shine as 'Miracle Mets' blitz Phillies
- Harris, Trump trade blows in US election media blitz
- Harry's Bar in Paris drinks to US straw-poll centenary
- Osama bin Laden's son Omar banned from returning to France
- Afghan man arrested for plotting US election day attack
- Brazil lifts ban on Musk's X, ending standoff over disinformation
- Harris holds slight edge nationally over Trump: poll
- Chelsea edge Real Madrid in Women's Champions League, Lyon win
- Japan PM to dissolve parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- 'Diego Lives': Immersive Maradona exhibit hits Barcelona
- Brazil Supreme Court lifts ban on Musk's X
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
- Six-year-old girl among missing after Brazil landslide
- Nobel-winning physicist 'unnerved' by AI technology he helped create
- Mexico president rules out new 'war on drugs'
- Israeli defense minister postpones trip to Washington: Pentagon
- Europe skipper Donald in talks with Garcia over Ryder return
- Kenya MPs vote to impeach deputy president in historic move
- Former US coach Berhalter named Chicago Fire head coach
- New York Jets fire head coach Saleh: team
- Australia crush New Zealand in Women's T20 World Cup
- US states accuse TikTok of harming young users
- 'Evacuate now, now, now': Florida braces for next hurricane
- US Supreme Court skeptical of challenge to 'ghost guns' regulation
- Sparks fly as Orban berates EU 'elites' in parliament trip
- US finalizes rule to remove lead pipes within a decade
- Solanke hungry for second England cap after seven-year wait
- Gilded canopy restored at Vatican basilica
- Zverev scrapes through, Djokovic cruises to Shanghai Masters last 16
- Trump secretly sent Covid tests to Putin: Bob Woodward book
- Gauff answers critics: 'It's hard to win all the time'
- Neural networks, machine learning? Nobel-winning AI science explained
- China says raised 'serious concerns' with US over trade curbs
- Boeing delivers 27 MAX jets in September despite strike
- German 'Maddie' suspect could be free in 2025 after cleared of other sex crimes
- Italy seek Nations League consistency as Germany continue rebuild
- From boom to budgeting as reality bites for Saudi football
- Stock markets diverge as Hong Kong sinks, oil prices fall
EU to warn France, Italy and more over unruly budgets
The European Union is expected on Wednesday to rebuke nearly 10 governments, including France and Italy, over their excessive spending after new budget rules entered into force this year.
It comes at a particularly difficult moment for France, where both the far left and far right are piling up spending promises ahead of snap polls triggered by President Emmanuel Macron's crushing EU election defeat.
This will be the first time Brussels reprimands nations since the EU suspended the rules after the 2020 Covid pandemic and the energy crisis triggered by the Ukraine war, as states propped up businesses and households with public money.
The EU spent two years during the suspension overhauling the budget rules to make them more workable and give greater leeway for investment in critical areas like defence.
But two sacred goals remain: a state's debt must not go higher than 60 percent of national output, with a public deficit -- the shortfall between government revenue and spending -- of no more than three percent.
The European Commission will publish assessments of the 27 EU states' budgets and economies on Wednesday, and will likely point out that some 10 countries including Belgium, France and Italy, have deficits higher than three percent.
The EU's executive arm has threatened to launch excessive deficit procedures, which kickstart a process forcing a debt-overloaded country to negotiate a plan with Brussels to get back on track.
Such a move would need approval by EU finance ministers in July.
Countries failing to remedy the situation can in theory be hit with fines of 0.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) a year, until action is taken to address the violation.
In practice, though, the commission has never gone as far as levying fines -- fearing it could trigger unintended political consequences and hurt a state's economy.
- Break with the past -
The EU countries with the highest deficit-to-GDP ratios last year are Italy (7.4 percent), Hungary (6.7 percent), Romania (6.6 percent), France (5.5 percent) and Poland (5.1 percent).
They will "likely" face the excessive deficit procedures, alongside Slovakia, Malta and Belgium, which also have deficits above three percent, according to Andreas Eisl, expert at the Jacques Delors Institute.
The picture is complicated for three other countries, Eisl said. Spain and the Czech Republic exceeded the three percent limit in 2023 but should be back in line this year.
Meanwhile, Estonia's deficit-to-GDP ratio is above three percent but its debt is around 20 percent of GDP, significantly below the 60 percent limit.
The commission will look at the states' data in 2023 but "will also take into account the developments expected for 2024 and beyond", the expert told AFP.
Member states must send their multi-annual spending plans by October for the EU to scrutinise and the commission will then publish its recommendations in November.
Under the new rules, countries with an excessive deficit must reduce it by 0.5 points each year, which would require a massive undertaking at a moment when states need to pour money into the green and digital transition, as well as defence.
Adopted in 1997 ahead of the arrival of the single currency in 1999, the rules known as the Stability and Growth Pact seek to prevent lax budgetary policies -- a concern of Germany -- by setting the strict goal of balanced accounts.
F.Pedersen--AMWN