The European Parliament Committee on Budgets voted on Monday 17 April to adopt the ‘Hayer-Fernandes’ own-initiative report proposing new own resources for the EU by 28 votes to 5 with 4 abstentions. This second basket of own resources aims to find additional revenue to pay off the EU’s debt while strengthening the Union’s competitiveness and taking into account the climate challenge.
“We have to pay the debt, the principal and the interest, until 2058, and if we don’t have new own resources, we will have a budget cut of more than 10%”, the European Parliament’s co-rapporteur on the revenue side of the budget, José Manuel Fernandes (EPP, Portuguese), told Europe.
“We must therefore have new revenues which, at the same time, do not burden the citizen, introduce fair and equitable competition and contribute to the political objectives of the Union, particularly in terms of climate”.
MEPs expressed concern that the amounts generated by the new own resources would not be sufficient to cover all the repayments and borrowing costs associated with Next Generation EU (estimated to be at least €15 billion per year until 2058).
New sources of revenue for the EU budget have been proposed by MEPs, including corporate tax-based own resources, a financial transaction tax, a new fair border mechanism, a tax on crypto-assets, green own resources and statistics-based national contributions.
Regarding the fair border mechanism, the aim is to charge companies that sell products in Europe made by workers paid below the poverty line on the other side of the world (see EUROPE 13099/8).
“It is unacceptable for multinationals to introduce products from countries where people are paid less than $2 a day. At the same time, by inviting these companies to pay better, we improve the competitiveness of our companies”, pointed out José Manuel Fernandes.
A share of the revenue from the harmonisation of companies in Europe (BEFIT) will also be allocated to the European budget. “In the event that BEFIT does not succeed, we propose a fair and equitable ‘digital contribution’ from the digital giants to the market they benefit from” said co-rapporteur Valérie Hayer (Renew Europe, French) in a statement.
The Commission had already proposed a first basket of new own resources in 2021 (see EUROPE 12859/3). It is expected to present its proposals for new additional own resources in September.
With regard to the first basket, the EU Council has adopted a roadmap and will have to decide on a consultation of the Parliament which will be voted on Wednesday 19 April in plenary session.
This report will be adopted at the next plenary session of the Parliament in May. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)