Brussels, 24/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - European ministers did not get anywhere in Monday 24 September in their talks on the upcoming Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the European Union's budget in 2014-2020. Still awaiting figures from the Cypriot Presidency and divided over the Presidency's desire to cut the overall budget suggested by the European Commission for the post-2013 MFF, the EU27 did, however, say they hoped agreement would be reached on the budget at the 23-23 November European summit.
Cohesion-friendly countries oppose the Cypriot Presidency's idea to cut funding for the cohesion policy, and farm-friendly countries like France protested against the negotiating box plan to gradually cut direct aid to farmers. The Presidency is not planning to submit any figures ahead of the next Council in October (in order to avoid upsetting the EU leaders' talks), having postponed publication of figures until November.
The plan to cut the overall total from the amount suggested by the Commission for 2014-2020 has not won over the majority of member states. Cohesion-friendly countries continue to oppose the idea of further cuts in the European Union's next budget. Better spending-friendly countries - net contributors like Finland, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria and the United Kingdom - want the overall budget to be cut. Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Greece, Malta, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Portugal are unhappy about the Cypriot Presidency's plans to cut overall spending. Poland pointed out that it would never believe that by spending less, one was spending better because spending less means spending much worse. These countries fear that the axe will fall mainly on the cohesion policy and argue that if there are to be cuts, then they should cover all areas of the budget and when it comes to cohesion, cuts should not only affect the less advanced countries.
Spain points out that the Commission's initial proposal had already cut spending on the common agricultural policy (CAP) and cohesions and therefore any further cuts would hit these policies particularly hard. Italy says that better spending doesn't mean spending less, but thinking more about how to spend. France says it wants a realistic total, but achieved in a balanced manner rather than uniformly. The Cypriot Presidency promised to respect this in the next stages of the negotiations.
Disagreements about the “reverse safety net” (cohesion) and direct aid to farmers (CAP). When it comes to cohesion, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Italy and Poland welcomed the removal of the “reverse safety net” from the negotiating box (that caps allocations in terms of the amounts set for the 2007-13 period). The reverse safety net was defended, however, by Finland, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom. Aid for transition regions is still a controversial issue. Austria, Belgium and France are in favour of transition aid.
For the CAP, the gradual reduction in direct aid for farmers is causing much wincing. Several countries (Slovakia, Germany, Spain, France, Finland, Romania, Austria, Luxembourg and Bulgaria) opposed the idea of reducing direct aid. In terms of rural development, eleven countries (Bulgaria, Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Latvia, Malta, Poland and Slovenia) are calling for the reference years (used to determine amounts) to be the whole of the programming period (2007-2013) rather than just 2013 as desired by the Presidency.
“Own resource” funding. Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom repeated their desire for the rebates in their contributions to the EU budget to continue. The United Kingdom justified this by saying that the rebates self-regulate in line with the scale of the EU budget. Germany is always critical of the British rebate, describing it as unfair when some countries have to fight to get any aid. Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Latvia, Slovenia and Hungary called for the collection charges to remain at 25%, rather than 10% as desired by the Presidency. The financial transaction tax is making slow progress with some ten countries said to be prepared to enter “enhanced cooperation” to this end, but without specifying whether the money raised would be fed into the EU pot. It is possible that the ten countries will publish details later this year.
Remainder to be liquidated (RAL). A fair number of countries, mainly net contributors, say that the upcoming MFF should decide what to do with the “remainder to be liquidated” (Finland, France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Lithuania). France says that although RAL is mentioned in a paragraph of the negotiating box, the Presidency has not gone into any detail, despite the risk to tax-payers. (MD/transl.fl)