On Wednesday 10 January, the Budget Commissioner, Günther Oettinger, received the backing of the College of Commissioners at an initial guideline debate on the multi-annual financial framework, for instance on an increase of the European budget to bring it to a level of between 1.1% and 1.2% of gross national income (GNI). On the same occasion, the European Commission launched a series of public consultations.
At a press conference following the meeting of the College, the Commissioner repeated his proposals, which he had already outlined on Monday 8 January at a conference on the forthcoming multi-annual financial framework (see EUROPE 11934).
As a reminder, here are the broad outlines. The Commissioner started by saying that the next European budget would have two challenges to face: plugging the budgetary gap caused by the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (around €12 to €13 billion) and paying for new priorities (around €10 billion a year).
Oettinger is therefore proposing two actions: firstly, increasing the expenditure ceilings to slightly above 1.1% of GNI and, secondly, making budgetary cuts. To pay for what needs doing, the Commissioner anticipates around 20% savings and 80% fresh money, provided by the member states, for the overall budget.
Here, the Commissioner was a bit clearer: the Commissioners have accepted that European funds and programmes will need to be trimmed, most significantly the common agricultural policy and cohesion policy (5% to 10%, according to his speech at the beginning of the week). However, the Commissioner said that he wished to ringfence two programmes: the Erasmus+ exchange programme and the research and innovation programme, Horizon post-2020. He hopes to see a greater budgetary envelope for these two programmes.
The German Commissioner went on to say that over the next period, the EU’s actions would be decided upon using the principle of ‘European added value’ – still a fairly vague concept, but one for which he has pledged a legal clarification in the coming weeks. Other proposals were set out, some of which were already in the public domain, such as the creation of a series of common rules between European funds.
'No' to a Eurozone budget, ‘yes’ to new resources. The Commissioner argued against creating a specific budget for the Eurozone, explaining that more and more member states will adopt the single currency over the next decade. As regards revenue, the Commission made two proposals: - some of the income generated by the ETS system should be fed back to the EU, as, he explained, the fight against climate change is structured at EU level; - the forthcoming proposal for a plastics tax.
Seven years for the last time. Concerning the financial framework, the Commissioner implied that he hoped the forthcoming financial framework would still be in the seven-year format, but that it would last for five years from 2024 onwards. The first post-2020 financial framework will thus be a kind of “bridge” to the new format, which he feels is more democratic, as it coincides with the mandate.
No more rebates. Due to Brexit, the Commissioner also expressed his hopes that the next European budget will contain no rebates, for budgetary simplification reasons as much as anything else. He anticipates more budgetary simplification in the presentation of the chapters, which will no longer be represented by numbers, but by specific titles.
A tight timeframe. Finally, the Commissioner stressed the need to work quickly to ensure that the elections do not coincide with the middle of the negotiations on the multi-annual financial framework, causing a substantial delay in its implementation. The timeframe will be tight: the Commission intends to present its proposal on 30 May and reach an agreement before May 2019 in time for the Sibiu conference and the European elections.
Launch of a series of public consultations. The Commission also took the opportunity to launch a series of public consultations, all of which will run until 8 March and will concern: - EU funds in the area of values and mobility; - EU funds in the area of cohesion; - EU funds in the area of strategic infrastructure; - EU funds in the area of migration; - EU funds in the area of investment, research & innovation, SMEs and single market; - EU funds in the area of security. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)