Across European capitals, two competing visions of solidarity and fiscal restraint are taking shape as the EU prepares to decide how nearly two trillion euros will be spent over the next seven years. António Costa moves quietly from government to government, listening for the contours of a possible consensus, while Friedrich Merz assembles the northern nations in Berlin to insist that the bloc must spend less and demand more discipline. The negotiation ahead is not merely technical — it is a reckoning with the oldest question in European integration: who pays, who benefits, and what holds the