The latest proposal for the EU’s seven-year budget review, which implies significant cuts and reallocations, has so far failed to convince member states – Euractiv.
The latest initiatives, tabled by the Spanish presidency of the EU Council and handed to EU ambassadors on Wednesday, demonstrate member states’ desire to limit the EU budget while maintaining financial aid to Ukraine. The draft compromise text is the latest in a series of documents put forward in recent months in an attempt to close the European budget revision deal in time for the European Council on December 14-15.
At the same time, national budgets are struggling to address the cost-of-living crisis.
The European Commission unveiled a €98.8bn package in June, including €66bn of new money to boost the original seven-year budget, the flexibility of which it says has been depleted by crises such as support for Ukraine and the COVID pandemic.
It includes a €50bn lifeline for Ukraine to help keep the war-torn country’s economy afloat. The draft also proposes to increase the overall budget by €73.6 billion, cutting the Commission’s proposal by €25.2 billion and reducing additional national contributions. An earlier version, dated December 2, called for an increase of 84 billion euros.
The Ukrainian fund will be kept as it is considered a priority, while other ideas focus on reallocating money from the current budget to new priorities and limiting the use of fresh money to a few projects. Civil protection in case of natural disasters is cut by €1 billion.
While the vast majority of EU countries agree on an deal for Ukraine, Budapest has opposed the proposal, calling on the Council to split the package into two parts, with a discussion of EU budget increases on one side and Ukraine’s needs on the other.
We are open to discussing a dedicated budget or fund for Ukraine.
Despite opposition from some EU countries, the rejected draft reads as follows:
“Potential revenues for the Union budget that could be generated under the relevant Union legal acts, concerning the use of extraordinary revenues held by private entities stemming directly from the immobilised Central Bank of Russia assets, will be externally assigned to the Ukraine Facility.”
