Following talks on the European Union budget, Germany and five other member states are calling for cuts running into the billions of euros.
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Chancellor Friedrich Merz, together with the heads of government of five other EU donor countries, called for drastic cuts to the Union’s next budget.
After a meeting in Berlin, he said that the European Commission’s current proposals, which envisage an increase of up to 60 percent, are “simply unaffordable.”
According to Merz, the proposed amount should be reduced “by several hundred billion euros,” while the cuts would affect almost all areas.
The position of the six countries was described as “neither tight-fisted nor overly generous.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo and Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker attended the confidential meeting in Berlin, while the prime ministers of the Netherlands and Sweden joined via videoconference.
These six countries finance around 40 percent of the European budget. Merz also emphasized that these same countries provide 70 percent of the bilateral aid that EU member states give to Ukraine. “We are not miserly, but the increases in the figures proposed by the Commission do not correspond to reality,” Merz declared.
The group of contributing countries called for “realism and reform” in the multiannual financial framework, which comes into force on January 1, 2028. According to them, the security, sovereignty, migration and competitiveness of the European Union should be at the center of the budget.
They stressed that the EU budget should not be an exception. “At a time when practically all member states are undertaking ‘painful’ budgetary measures, the EU budget cannot be an exception,” the joint statement said.
The six countries also said “no” to new debt and additional hiring. In their statement, they rejected a new issuance of common European debt, arguing that this is neither a solution to the budgetary challenges nor an alternative to structural reforms. Furthermore, they underlined that EU institutions should manage their tasks with existing staffing levels.
“With a 20th-century budget, we will not be able to cope with the challenges of the 21st century,” Merz said. The aim is for negotiations to be completed by the end of this year, if possible. The group intends to present a unified position in EU consultations beginning in October. /DW
