• The blueprint, if ratified by all, would stand as a milestone in a half-century of European integration, marking a step towards mutualised debt as a major funding tool for the first time.

The blueprint, if ratified by all, would stand as a milestone in a half-century of European integration, marking a step towards mutualised debt as a major funding tool for the first time and paving the way for greater EU powers of taxation.

However, fiscally conservative northern countries have resisted pressure from others in the EU to take on mutual debt to protect the EU's single market of 450 million people from being splintered by divergent economic growth and wealth levels.