The money from the EU's 750 billion euro Corona reconstruction fund has been flowing into the member states for months.

How the European Union will repay the debts it has taken on for this is still open.

So far, the member states and the European Parliament have only agreed that the EU should receive its own new sources of income for this.

In doing so, they want to avoid the Member States' contributions increasing or the EU budget having to be reduced if the debts are repaid between 2028 and 2058.

Hendrik Kafsack

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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After all, adjusted for inflation, it is at least 15 billion euros a year.

The EU institutions also outlined the sources from which the EU should receive money when they agreed on the Corona Fund: income from emissions trading, the planned CO2 border tax and the global minimum tax for large companies.

Emissions trading should do the lion's share

The necessary “own resources decision”, which gives the EU access to these sources of income, and the specific amount, however, are open.

The European Commission has now submitted a proposal, months late, which, however, is initially only intended to collect part of the necessary sum.

The lion's share of the repayment should therefore be done by emissions trading. The Commission wants to channel 25 percent of the funds into the EU budget. According to their estimates, this corresponds to around 12.5 billion euros. Of this, however, 8 billion euros are to flow into the financing of the Climate Social Fund, with which the Commission wants to cushion the expansion of emissions trading to buildings and transport. That leaves 4.8 billion euros to repay the debt.

The CO2 border tax should contribute 0.8 billion euros and the global minimum tax between 2.5 and 4 billion euros per year to repay debt.

The proposal therefore only covers around two thirds of the 15 billion euros required.

For the rest, the Commission wants to propose a second package of sources of income in 2023, a year earlier than previously planned.

This should include a new common corporate tax base and the so far unsuccessfully discussed financial transaction tax.

Poland could cause trouble

The first package was originally supposed to be presented in the summer. But the Commission has repeatedly postponed it. The reason for this is that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wanted to avoid a debate about the use of funds from emissions trading, according to the Commission. They fear that the proposal will not go down well in countries like Poland. According to the proposal, they would pay in a lot, because the proportion of electricity from coal is high there, and thus finance the EU's debts. That could endanger the entire climate package.

After all, resistance to emissions trading in Poland and other countries is already great - and has been increased by the high energy prices in recent months. The EU Commission therefore proposes capping the contributions to the EU budget from emissions trading at least until 2030. They should amount to a maximum of 150 percent of a country's economic output, from which Poland should benefit.

Otherwise, the discussion about the new EU own resources is likely to be difficult despite all the preliminary agreements.

"The Polish and Hungarian governments will try to take the capital adequacy decision hostage in order to release their reconstruction funds," warns the SPD MEP Jens Geier.

Funds are blocked because of the rule of law dispute.

Regardless of this, there is skepticism in many countries about creating new direct sources of income for the EU.

According to the Commission, the debate could drag on for years and may not be resolved until the next multi-annual budget from 2028 to 2034.