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The European Parliament and the EU states have agreed on the Union’s budget for the next seven years. It amounts to 1,074 million euros. This also paves the way for additional corona support.
In the dispute over the structure of the EU’s long-term budget, negotiators in the European Parliament and member states have reached a compromise. Among other things, the agreement foresees that selected EU programs on topics such as research, health, youth and education will receive additional money, as confirmed by MEPs and the German Presidency of the Council of the EU.
Parliament negotiates additional funds
By their own account, MEPs negotiated a total of € 16 billion more for their concerns than the member state governments really wanted to contribute. The current German Presidency of the Council of the EU expects around 12.5 billion euros to be fresh money. It is said to come largely from the proceeds of EU competition sanctions that have so far returned to member states.
The deal is one of the prerequisites for preparations to continue for the planned EU Crown aid worth 750 billion euros. In addition to the almost € 1.1 trillion of the multiannual financial framework for the years 2021-2027 will be made available. Negotiators from Member States and Parliament had been negotiating the budget since September.
How do Poland and Hungary react?
Now it is eagerly awaited whether all EU states will agree to the additional billions in spending. Hungary and Poland had recently threatened to block important EU decisions on the long-term EU budget if new sanctions were introduced for violations of the rule of law. To this end, negotiators negotiated a compromise last week, which was rejected in Hungary and Poland.
The new sanctions mechanism states that, for the first time in the history of the European Union, EU funds could be cut on a large scale due to violations of the rule of law. Specifically, this should be the case, for example, if in the host country the courts responsible for possible fund allocation reviews cannot act completely independently. It is open how the conflict with Hungary and Poland could be resolved. In both countries, the EU Commission, which is responsible for compliance with EU law, has long criticized politics as having too great an influence in the courts. Criticisms of this are categorically rejected by the governments of Warsaw and Budapest.
