There is money in almost all disputes in the EU. Today, the European Commission will present a task about which European politicians will argue over the next months - a long-term budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the period 2028-2034.
Great improvement and fewer More Money
Ursula von der Leyen announced that the budget was facing a major reform. This means a tough fight between beneficiaries of the current WRF form and possible beneficiaries of planned changes about who gets a larger part of cake with a EUR 1.2 trillion inscription.
The current multi-annual EU budget will not grow, although experts from the think-tank Bruegel point out that the challenges of digital and climate change, defence, migration and competitiveness require an increase from 1 to 2 percent of the yearly GDP of all its countries – about as much as was requested by the EC in the study was the Italian Prime Minister and president of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi.
Countries do not want to increase contributions
But, as Deutsche Welle has late heard in Brussels from those who are well-oriented in the work of the MFF, present in most countries the willingness to increase the EU budget contribution is limited and, in fact, it is not at all - even though the full east of the EU would have wanted a larger budget in general.
The task of Piotr Serafin, the Polish EU Commissioner liable for the MFF project, was so besides to look for "new resources", i.e. fresh sources of EU revenue, which would allow, among another things, to finance plans to make the defence possible of the continent.
The reforms announced by Ursula von der Leyen have the EU budget to simplify, streamline, for example, in the event of natural disasters, decision money from 1 policy area to another – and adjust it to the Union's strategical priorities. And to conventional ones, the levelling of regions, i.e. cohesion, and agriculture, has reached defence and competitiveness.
Leak Festival
The president of the European Commission and the head of her cabinet, Bjoern Seibert, have ensured that as fewer details as possible of the MFF are made available to the public before the authoritative presentation. According to reports from European media, officials liable for the various branches of the MFF did not know the details or arrangements concerning what was not within their competence.
But any assumptions leaked.
The sharpest reactions have been the consequence of reports that the EC is planning to radically rebuild the 2 major programmes: the common agricultural policy (CAP) and cohesion policy. any 540 programmes would make up 27 alleged National and Regional Partnership Plans. The payment of around EUR 800 billion would depend on the EU's accepted national reforms. This would reduce administrative costs.
"This is simply a bit like a KPO," she heard from a European politician who specialises in budgetary issues. Indeed, the Commission's multi-annual budget plan, if it had its final shape, would contain similarities to the EU recovery fund following the Covid-19 pandemic. Thus, it would reduce the impact of regions on the division of EU cake and increase the impact of national governments.
But cohesion policy, the EU's most crucial investment policy, almost EUR 400 billion in the current budget perspective, aims to compensate for the disparities in the European regions. The EU agricultural policy pays, among others, subsidies to farmers. And from what DW heard in Brussels, these budget subsidies "will". However, only after the Commission's presentation of the MFF will it be clear what mechanics the EC has decided to manage these policies.
PE: "no" for "money device for national interests"
Decisions can be weighed until the last minute, as von der Leyen met with the opposition even in the Commission itself. The criticism besides sounded loud on 15 July in the political backdrop of von der Leyen, in those parties in Parliament that only a fewer days ago renewed the EC's vote of confidence.
– We will reject any effort to renationalise the European budget and reduce it to a device with money for 27 different national interests," said the rapporteur for the MFF, Siegfried Muresan.
The Romanian Euro MP for von der Leyen of the European People's organization (EPP) besides recalled that Parliament had already rejected the introduction of "uniform national plans that would divorce the Common Agricultural Policy and Cohesion Policy".
In the light of his words, the fact that the transfer of 2 thirds of the EU budget from EUR 1.2 trillion to the national improvement plans negotiated between the Commission and the associate States would reduce not only the function of regions in their division but besides the EP in the decision-making process. Meanwhile, the budget needs not only unanimity in the Council but besides a majority in the plenary.
For the next six months holding the EU Presidency The Danish will so effort to scope a compromise version of the MFF, and both the EP and the Council, as well as the various factions in these institutions, will make their proposals and red lines, which they will not want to exceed.
Where does the EU get the money?
"I do not know if Peter Serafin will be full convinced of what he himself will gotta study in the European Parliament," said a DW writer from a European politician, a budget expert, on the eve of the announcement of the draft WRF. What precisely will the Polish Commissioner refer, so it will most likely not be until the presentation itself. little than 24 hours before it, more leaks are emerging in the European media as to what is in the budget or what just came out of it.
The Commission's dilemma is to allocate powerful resources to the fresh priorities of the Union, namely defence and competitiveness, without harming the past, namely cohesion and agriculture. While it is hard to get fresh money from the empty and the Seraphin, since EU countries do not want to increase their contribution and many of them do not want the EU to debt again.
What about ETS-2? "It's a leak, but without buildings and transport"
The second pillar of the EU ETS is an instrument that could bring any revenue2. Planned for 2027, it would cover emissions from transport and buildings. However, this gross would have a price which not everyone in Brussels and in the EU capitals would like to pay.
Increases in the cost of emissions could be passed on to individual consumers. So the prices of energy, heating and fuel would increase. And a fewer weeks ago, a DW writer in Brussels heard that proposing ETS-2 as a way to finance the EU budget would be highly unreasonable.
On 15 July, the previously quoted European politician – an expert on budget issues – told the DW that the ETS strategy is to be truncated to the version "without buildings and transport, due to the fact that it would be lethal for us". However, our origin has warned that these are "first leaks", much can change, and the final form of the Commission's proposal will come to Europe today.
