Image: European Union
Charles Michel heads south-east to find consensus on EU spending commitments
European Council president Charles Michel is meeting the leaders of Croatia, Romania and Slovakia this week in an attempt to craft a consensus on the size of the EU’s 2021-27 budget.
Governments in southern and eastern Europe are reportedly unhappy with the budget proposed in December by Finland—the host of the EU presidency at the time—which was smaller than that proposed by the European Commission.
According to the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank, the tension centres on the potential reduction of EU cohesion funding, of which southern and eastern states are major beneficiaries.
A substantial portion of cohesion funding is devoted to supporting research and innovation. For some EU member states, cohesion funding is a bigger source of support for R&D than the bloc’s dedicated R&D programme.
Finland’s proposal was for the EU budget to be set at 1.07 per cent of gross national income—less than the Commission’s proposed 1.11 per cent and much less than the European Parliament’s preferred 1.3 per cent.
Funding for the 2021-27 R&D programme Horizon Europe would have been set at €84 billion in 2018 prices under Finland’s proposal, down from the €86.6bn proposed by the Commission and far below the Parliament’s call for €120bn.
Croatia took over the rotating six-month presidency of the Council from Finland on 1 January. Representatives of the country are working with Michel to guide the budget negotiations.
A spokeswoman for Croatia’s permanent representation to the EU told Research Professional News that her country would seek an “appropriate compromise” which “must be in favour of the EU as a whole” but also “take into account [the] specificities of each country”.
She said Croatia would decide whether or not to put the budget on the agenda of the five meetings of EU ambassadors that are scheduled for January, “depending on the pace and results of Charles Michel’s negotiations”.
Michel was formally tasked with pushing negotiations towards a final agreement at the last meeting of European leaders on 12 December.