EU Member States will debate the European Commission’s proposal for a post-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) put forward on Wednesday 16 July (see EUROPE 13682/1) at the General Affairs Council on Friday 18 July.
The amounts. The first element to be scrutinised is the fact that the total amount of almost €2,000 billion for the 2028-2034 MFF is not unanimously supported by the so-called “frugal” countries and Finland, which have already expressed their views on the proposal. Germany, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands were critical of the overall increase in the budget.
German government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius contrasted this overall budget increase with the efforts currently being made by EU Member States “to consolidate national budgets”. This situation makes the European Commission’s proposal “unacceptable”, in his view.
According to the Dutch Finance Minister, Eelco Heinen, the EU should “not always focus solely on how the EU can spend more, but rather on how existing funds can be spent better”. While the minister acknowledged that the choices would be “difficult”, he pointed out that the Netherlands’ financial contribution was “already significant”.
“New instruments for joint debt are therefore not on the table”, according to the Netherlands. The same goes for Finland, which has warned, through its Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, that it will oppose “the creation of new financial instruments at EU level, such as the recovery instrument, financed by the European loan”.
Own resources. It is hard to imagine a different response from these countries regarding the creation of new own resources (NORs).
Sweden has expressed its firm opposition to the five new resources proposed by the European Commission, including ETS1, CBAM, tobacco tax, e-waste tax and corporate tax (see EUROPE 13682/1). These mechanisms would not bring in “new money”, but would rather represent an additional tax burden on Member States or national companies, according to Sweden.
In particular, Germany made it clear that it would not support “the additional corporate taxation proposed by the European Commission”. The European Commission has estimated that adopting these resources would generate around €44 billion more per year, or €308 billion over seven years.
Political priorities are shared. On the other hand, Germany, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands reaffirmed their support for simplifying the budget and increasing funding for defence, security, competitiveness, innovation and aid to Ukraine, all of which have been designated priorities by the European Commission.
“The 2028–2034 budget proposal unveiled on Wednesday aims to combat foreign competition and counter Russia, while seeking to improve competitiveness within the bloc”, explained Germany.
According to Petteri Orpo, the 2028–2034 MFF will have to “offer the best possible tools to meet these challenges”.
The Member States will now have to negotiate with the European Parliament and the European Commission in order to reach an agreement by 2027. Unanimity in the EU Council will be required for both the MFF and own resources. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)