Brussels, 29/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - EU European affairs ministers, meeting in Sopot on Friday 29 July, revealed division over Commission proposals on the multiannual financial framework for the period from 2014 to 2020. Several countries felt that the proposals formed a sound basis for discussion, while a group, in which feature the United Kingdom, France and Germany, repeated its call for a budget freeze over this period. These three member states urged credibility in view of the economic difficulties currently being experienced by most EU countries.
UK Minister David Lidington said that the 5% increase in expenditure called for by the Commission (to €1,083 billion) was unimaginable in this time of economic difficulty. He called for expenditure to be “at least frozen” and said he would brook no compromise. He called on the Commission to acknowledge that this was not just the view of national governments but also that of European taxpayers, who are calling for financial discipline.
“This is the most spectacular budget ever seen”, said German Minister with responsibility for European Affairs Werner Hoyer. He stated that the Commission had come up with a “very ambitious” proposal which had to be “made more realistic”.
France called for more rigour and transparency. It wants an assessment made of all European policies to determine the growth sector on which to concentrate, “in the same way as the common agricultural policy, which has been assessed four times”, noted French Secretary of State for European Affairs Jean Leonetti. He wondered, therefore, why similar assessment should not be carried out for the other policies. “Maybe instead of spending more, we could spend more intelligently”, he postulated. “How can one explain that, to reduce the deficit, we are working to reduce national public expenditure and, at European level, we are increasing spending. France believes the contribution for 2020 should go up by €5 billion”, Leonetti said. He argued that a new European era was beginning. “If the EU was at one time, and the facts bear this out today, generous but naïve, it now has to move into a time of realism. To say that we are going to have a budget as if the crisis was no more than a side issue is a basic error.”
On the other hand, the MEPs invited to attend the meeting by the Polish Presidency reproached what they saw as these countries' short-term eurosceptic vision, when the next financial perspectives will run until 2020.
European Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski welcomed the way things had turned out, despite a few discordant voices. The debate did not come to a sudden halt, as it had done seven years ago. “24 of the 27 delegations felt that the proposal provides a sound basis for discussion”, he said. He said he had received “good signals from Paris and Madrid” and even indicated that the official German position satisfied him and that he was not counting on the United Kingdom in this debate.
According to sources close to the Commission, the United Kingdom has rejected the 2014-2020 financial framework as presented by the Commission. Sweden would also seem to have criticised the Commission's poor structure of expenditure. Hungary is thought to have been highly critical of the reduction in funding it would receive under the 2014-2020 cohesion policy. (V.W./transl.rt)