On Monday 4 April, several members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgets called for an early revision of the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), to take account of the huge needs arising from the war in Ukraine triggered by Russia.
EU Commissioner for Budget Johannes Hahn highlighted that the revision of the MFF was originally planned for 2024, and indicated that due to inflation, the Commission had decided to bring the reform forward by half a year (to the end of 2023).
“The MFF will have to be revised. We lose 4-5% of the real value of our budget each year due to inflation, which has consequences for all our programmes.”
Several MEPs, including José Manuel Fernandes (EPP, Portugal) and Rasmus Andresen (Greens/EFA, Germany), have called for an earlier revision of the MFF to meet the requirements. However, the Budget Commissioner said that a revision of the MFF “will not solve the problem”. He would prefer to focus the Commission’s energy on finding the instruments available and the programmes to be mobilised or put in place to support Ukraine.
Mr Hahn is realistic. It is not the EU budget alone that will meet the requirements. It must be a joint effort involving EU Member States and partners at international level. He also referred to the reluctance of EU countries to engage in further negotiations on a reform of the MFF.
The Commissioner acknowledged that he did not know, at this stage, the extent of future funding needs. He said that he had to be creative and flexible in mobilising unspent funds (structural funds) from the 2014-2020 MFF to help EU countries hosting refugees. He referred to the Cohesion Action for Refugees in Europe (CARE).
“It is a myth to think that the EU budget can solve the problem. Reshuffling the deck in the MFF will not get the necessary amount of money” in the required timeframe, insisted Hahn.
“I don’t think that in the current MFF it is possible to find a sufficient instrument to deal with big crises like the Covid-19 or the war in Ukraine”, the Commissioner summarised.
Mr Fernandes suggested mobilising the €200 billion of unused borrowings under the Economic Recovery Plan against Covid-19. Mr Hahn replied that the Member States would not give back what they had received.
Several MEPs lamented that the European Parliament is not sufficiently involved in decisions on aid to Ukraine.
Eider Gardiazabal Rubial (S&D, Spain) regretted that the MFF does not have an instrument to intervene in this kind of crisis and expressed concern about the effects of inflation, which “reduce the investment capacity” of the EU budget.
Nicolae Ștefănuță (Renew Europe, Romania) found it unfair that the countries in the front line (hosting refugees) are the ones that bear the biggest burden by relying on structural funds that were meant for something else. Mr Hahn replied that these were amounts from the previous MFF that had not been used.
Responding to Mr Andresen on the revenue side of the EU budget, the Commissioner stressed that the Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) should be part of the forthcoming proposal on own resources, but was sceptical about its usefulness in the short term. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)