London and Berlin Demand Billions in Cuts to Proposed EU Budget
London and Berlin Demand Billions in Cuts to Proposed EU Budget
The European Union has barely put its last difficult summit behind it, and yet a fresh dispute is already brewing that threatens to divide leaders in capitals across the Continent. It’s a conflict that comes every seven years — the next EU budget, which is currently proposed to exceed €1 trillion.
Member states of the European Union are currently arguing over the draft of the upcoming budget for Brussels, and a compromise appears increasingly unlikely. Germany, in particular, is unhappy with the latest proposal by Cyprus, which holds the EU’s current rotating presidency, to reduce the budget presented in June by the European Commission, the EU’s executive. Cyprus is calling for at least €50 billion to be cut from the €1.033 trillion budget.
“The suggestions made by the (EU) presidency to limit the EU budget fall markedly short of those that are necessary,” said Michael Link, a minister of state within the German Foreign Ministry.
The official said the figures named in the budget proposal for the period from 2014 to 2020 are “still very far” from the targets being sought by Germany and other so-called net payers in the EU — net contributors being the countries that pay more into the EU’s coffers than they get in return.
Germany and other net contributors want to limit the EU’s budget to 1 percent of the member states’ total gross domestic product (GDP). To achieve that, the Commission’s proposed budget would have to be slashed by as much as €130 billion.