The best beginning for negotiations that promise to be hard. The European Commission announced its budget proposal from 2028 to 2034 on Wednesday, set at 2,000 billion euros, with additional means of competitiveness and defense, which arouses the immediate rejection of the German government that judged this “unacceptable” increase.
It is the European budget “The most ambitious ever proposed,” said the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, during the presentation of the budget, starting two years of often difficult negotiations among Europeans.
The Executive erects competitiveness and innovation in priority, with 451 billion euros, confirming the turning point in favor of the European Union business in complete commercial tensions with the United States of Donald Trump.
Three years after the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Brussels also underlines its mobilization in favor of the defense (131 billion integrated in the competitiveness envelope), and promises 100 billion additional support in kyiv from 2028 to 2034.
Which causes Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban Roar. “Ukraine would benefit from mass financial assistance, while European farmers are losing,” criticized the nationalist leader, near Moscow.
“Unacceptable”
The general presentation of the Commission is subject to contrasting reactions.
“We will not support the additional taxes of the companies proposed by the Commission,” he added.
The same history for the Netherlands, one of the “frugal” countries that regularly demand savings in the EU, which also judges this “too high” budget.
France, for the voice of the delegate minister by Europe Benjamin Haddad, described the proposal of the “ambitious” commission.
In the European Parliament, the two reporters Siegfried Muresan (PPE, right) and Carla Tavares (sociodemocrat, left), judge the rise shown very insufficient because it is partly explained by inflation and by the reimbursement of the European loan hired during the Covvid-19 pandemic.
“Provocation”
The transformation of the common agricultural policy (CAP) will be in the heart of the long battle that is announced.
According to the Commission, 300 billion euros will be dedicated to the “income of farmers”, while the previous PAC budget represented 387 billion from 2021 to 2027, including 270 billion direct aid to farms.
Brussels explains the differential by a new budget architecture and the transfer of certain sums to the cohesion policy, which alarm the profession.
The Copa-Cogeca, Lobby of European farmers, launched hostilities on Wednesday before the commission by gathering a few hundred protesters against this “Black Wednesday for Agriculture.”
Executed for the 2024 agricultural anger movement, the commission is, however, reassuring. The 300 billion are a “minimum” that states can be completed with other European funds, said Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen.
A puzzle at 27
The previous budget, from 2021 to 2027, was to mobilize 1,200 billion euros, but was complemented with a recovery plan of 800 billion during the health crisis. And we had to make decisions, since the EU budget equation is the headache.
You already exposed, the Member States do not want to put more in the common pot, such as France, which assured Wednesday that it would pay EU less than expected in 2026. This, despite the fact that the list of European expenses continues to bed.
Therefore, the commission is looking for new resources. It offers a direct debit of additional tobacco, a contribution of large companies or a new non -recycled electronic waste tax.
Everything, while environmentalists fear that budget limitations are to sacrifice the credits dedicated to environmental protection.
What will be the arbitrations in two years? “As usual, everything will end in five days of negotiations” at a summit between 27, predicts a European official.
With In Hollow, the persistent division between the “frugal” states and those like France that advocate a new common European loan.
Source: BFM TV
