On Wednesday 28 March, the College of European Commissioners carried out a second guideline debate on the multiannual financial framework for the period 2021-2027, ahead of the formal proposal to be presented by the European Commission on Wednesday 2 May.
Discussions focused on ways of streamlining the EU budget to make it more coherent and effective, particularly by reducing the number of financial instruments (see EUROPE 11974). The possibility of making the granting of European funding conditional on compliance with the fundamental values of the EU, such as the rule of law, was also on the table.
When asked about the possibility of giving the EU budget new own resources, as recommended by the European Parliament (see EUROPE 11981), the Commissioner for Financial Services, Valdis Dombrovskis, said that several options have been considered, such as mobilising the emissions quotas trading system (ETS), or revenue generated by corporate tax (CCCTB), a financial transactions tax or a digital sector tax, once these taxes are in place. None of the options has been either confirmed or excluded, the Commissioner said.
The questions of the upper limit on EU spending - Commissioner Günther Oettinger mentioned a figure of 1.1% of gross national income (GNI) - and of the envelopes to be allocated to the policies - Oettinger spoke of reducing the budgetary envelopes for agriculture and cohesion to 60% of the total - were not discussed on Tuesday. They will be the subject of a third guideline debate in the second half of April. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)