Council and European Parliament reach agreement on EU budget

Audio 03:42

At a meeting of the Council of the European Union in December 2019 (Illustration) AFP / Aris Oikonomou

By: Aabla Jounaïdi Follow

9 min

The soap opera of the 2021-2027 European budget continues.

Four months after the States agreed with great difficulty on a package of 1800 billion euros, including the recovery plan, this agreement found on Tuesday provides for an extension of 16 billion for health, education and security.

It also clearly states that governments will be deprived of subsidies if they do not respect the rule of law.

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This agreement between the Presidency of the Council and the Parliament means, first of all, more money for certain flagship programs of the Union such as Erasmus.

It was not won because given the health situation and travel restrictions, it was convenient to leave this iconic community program as it is, which allows millions of students to discover the world.

Finally, its budget is increased by 2 billion euros.

In addition, 3.4 billion more will be dedicated to strengthening health systems in the Union.

This is not a luxury given the disparities observed during this health crisis.

Border security and humanitarian aid are also seeing their budgets strengthened.

The States were torn in July to complete a draft budget, how to release 16 billion euros more?

Parliament has been negotiating this with the Council Presidency since August because MEPs were not satisfied with the size of the multiannual budget.

They put all the pressure they could.

We remind you that they must vote for this budget for it to be implemented.

In principle, therefore, Parliament has - it has never happened - the possibility of blocking it.

Another thing, and this is moreover an important innovation, part of this additional budget would come from funds released by new resources.

MEPs have succeeded in pushing through a roadmap to integrate, for example, the plastic tax from 2021, and the reform of the carbon market, or even the tax on financial transactions ... as a future source of income for the EU.

The European Union which depends above all on contributions from States today.

Precisely, some states are already threatening to block the adoption of the budget

It must be adopted by member states by the end of the year.

But now, the Parliament and the German rotating presidency of the European Council have also agreed that a government which violates the rule of law is sanctioned by being deprived of a subsidy.

A mechanism must be approved by a qualified majority vote of the States.

The Polish and Hungarian presidents, who rightly feel they are targeted by the measure, threaten to obstruct.

As for MEPs, we doubt it.

Because everyone has an interest in seeing the funds for the recovery plan released as soon as possible ... in the context of the worsening health and economic crisis, including Poland and Hungary.

The latter must return to partial confinement from this Wednesday.

►In short

Toshiba to stop building new coal-fired power plants

While honoring its current commitments in the sector to the end, the Japanese industrial giant will favor its activities in renewable energies such as offshore wind and research in photovoltaics.

In line with the country's change of course.

Last month, the Japanese government finally set a goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. This is because the country is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world.

It produces much of its electricity from coal ... especially since the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

But what are these promises from large groups really worth?

This is the question asked by the NGO network

Not much if we take the case of several large banks as the NGO did when compiling their figures for this year.

British bank Barclays increased its funding for the fossil fuel sector in 2020.

$ 24.58 billion paid to companies in the coal, gas and oil sectors between January and September.

This is more than last year, when the group under pressure from some of its shareholders has committed to carbon neutrality by 2050.

Fund Our Future

also points to HSBC, the second bank that finances fossil energy the most in Europe behind Barclays, less than last year, but it is still 19 billion too many according to the NGO.

However, the commitments of the banks are only worth " 

 " underlines the NGO

quoted in the survey.

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