EU to unveil budget plans post-Brexit
BRUSSELS: The European Union (EU) will this week unveil its first formal plans for a larger, €1 trillion (RM4.7 trillion)plus long-term budget after Britain’s departure, which threaten to further deepen divisions in the bloc.
From slashed farm funds that will anger French farmers, to development cash tied to respect for democracy, and demands for greater national contributions, the 20212027 budget promises to be an explosive mixture.
EU budget commissioner Guenther Oettinger, who will present the plans here on Wednesday, says that tough steps are needed to fill a €12 to €14 billion hole left by Brexit. A race against time will follow, especially as the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, wants the budget agreed before the next European Parliament elections in May next year, two months after Britain leaves.
EU states say it is “impossible” given the rifts between east, west, north and south, with countries anxious not to put their hands in their pockets at a time when populism on the march.
“They have to take responsibility for the ambitions that they have expressed” for the EU after Brexit, said an official in JeanClaude Juncker’s commission.
The loss of Britain deprives the EU of one of its biggest net contributor nations at a time when the bloc is trying to finance new areas such as defence and tackling migration.
Countries including Austria and the Netherlands are already gearing up to fight any demand for increased national contributions, although France and Germany have said they are ready to pay more.
The sums at stake in the budget debate are huge, even if on the face of it they only represent a tiny fraction of the overall wealth of the European Union — the current 2014-2020 budget represented just one per cent of the bloc’s gross domestic product.