The rulers of Portugal, France and Germany defended a “future-proof European budget” on Thursday as the European Union (EU) debates its revision, wanting to focus on Ukraine’s reconstruction, EU enlargement and green goals.
“A future-proof European Union needs a future-proof European budget. A future-proof and efficient EU, including its new members from the Western Balkans and Eastern Neighbourhood, will require substantial reforms,” said Secretary of State for European Affairs and the responsible French and German ministers, Laurence Boone and Anna Lührmann, in an opinion piece published today.
At a time when the EU co-legislators are discussing the review of the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework, following a proposal from the European Commission presented last June, the leaders consider that “priority should be given to investments that have a higher rate of return if they are carried out jointly and not at the national level.
“We need an EU that invests in its competitiveness and in its ability to act together in favor of European sovereignty, climate action, peace and stability”, they list, proposing “investments in transnational infrastructure, food security, research and industry of transformation” in areas such as renewable energy, batteries, hydrogen and digitization.
When the block also discusses the recovery of Ukraine, after putting an end to the Russian invasion, its leaders suggest a kind of Marshall Plan for the country, proposing that, as happened with the North American program for the reconstruction of the allied countries of Europe after the World War II, the EU can “make history”.
Ukraine is also one of the countries with candidate status for EU membership, which is why the rulers also suggest that “the future EU budget must be prepared for enlargement”, cataloging this process as an “investment in the stability of Europe”.
In addition, “the search for investment in the future of Europe must be accompanied by adequate financing from the EU”, they affirm, alluding to “additional and well-targeted European resources”, in addition to the expected reimbursement of programs such as the Recovery Plan for post-pandemic Europe, budgeted at around 800,000 million euros at current prices.
The position comes at a time when the EU is discussing the long-term budget review for the period 2024-2027, which foresees a reserve of 50 billion euros to support the recovery of Ukraine, 15 billion euros for the migration management and 10 billion euros. for ‘green’ and technological investments, according to the proposal presented last June by the community executive.
At the time, the European Commission also proposed three new sources of income for the European budget based on the reallocation of profits from large business groups, on the permit trading regime and on the carbon emissions adjustment mechanism, through which estimates that the community of the bloc can count on at least 24.5 billion euros a year from 2024 and 36.5 billion euros from 2028.
The EU budget is currently financed from four own resources (customs duties, VAT, packaging waste and country contributions).
The introduction of new sources of income is a long-standing ambition and will make it possible to reduce the weight of Gross National Income (with each country contributing according to its quota) for community accounts.
Source: TSF
