‘Fighting like ferrets in a bag’ as EU tries to plug Brexit cash hole
UK’s withdrawal has left £62bn hole in bloc’s purse for the next seven years
Budget discussions in Brussels are always rancorous affairs. But this one is of a different order: everyone will have to pay more. No one wants to. ...There are two main rivals in the budget battle. On one side are those who proudly describe themselves as “the Frugals” – the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Denmark... As the biggest net payers, the Frugals have been insisting on a budget of no more than 1% of the EU’s gross national income. The European commission’s initial proposal was for 1.1% – around €1.25tn over the seven years....Then there are the “Friends of Cohesion”. “The Friends of Corruption, you mean?” spat one EU diplomat from a Frugal state....The 15 under the FoC flag are the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, Croatia, Malta, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Portugal and Greece.The Frugals say that the commission’s €90bn in cuts to agriculture and cohesion funding [!] are not enough. The FoC say they are being unfairly targeted and that the richer countries should cough up some more, setting up a battle between east and west.
The debate is all the more toxic as the commission has proposed that cohesion funds should also, in the future, be conditional on member states respecting the rule of law. It is a red rag to the bulls in the nationalist governments of Hungary and Poland...Berlin’s main concern is that they don’t come out of it looking worse than the French. In Paris, the government just worries about how much cash is going to go to its farmers...even Irish politics [is] in turmoil
A welcome return to realpolitik here too, away from all this sentiment about common destiny, family ties, international solidarity, the four freedoms (remember them?) and all that stuff.
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