These safeguards — keeping annual deficits below 1.5 per cent in the long term, and reducing excess debt by at least half a percentage point per year — “bite more” for the likes of Germany, Finland and Austria, one EU official said, due to their relatively low debt burdens compared with the EU’s average.

The euro trades at high levels given the risks surrounding Germany’s election result, Monex Europe analysts say in a note. Friedrich Merz pledged to remake the country’s security arrangements and achieve independence from the U.