13/02/2018 (Agence Europe) – During an exchange of views with the conference of Presidents of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Thursday 8 February, ahead of the European Commission's contribution to the informal Council of heads of state or government of 23 February, the Commissioner for the Budget, Günther Oettinger, warned the group presidents against an approach that would pit the old priorities (cohesion policy and common agriculture policy) against the new (defence and migration), which could lead to divisions that would be “difficult to heal”. The Commissioner argued in favour of setting a ceiling on spending at 1.1% of GNI, rather than the 1.3% as called for by Parliament (see EUROPE 11946), as he believes the risk of not reaching an agreement before the European elections of 2019 would be high. He went on to repeated the announcements of January (see EUROPE 11936). (PH)