Chinanews.com, February 23. According to the European Times, the EU summit was held in Brussels, Belgium recently, hoping to seek consensus on the EU's budget from 2021 to 2027. The analysis said that the solidarity demonstrated by many EU countries on the issue of Brexit has disappeared and replaced by a struggle around their own interests.
Data map: On January 29 local time, the European Parliament approved the "Brexit" agreement. The picture shows after the voting, the members present raised the flag of "Forever Unity". Photo courtesy of China News Agency
"Marathon" budget meeting ends in deadlock
The EU's trillion-euro budget is the cornerstone of its policy, enabling farmers to compete with imports from developing countries and helping poorer countries catch up with richer ones. The main topic of the summit is how to fill the 75 billion euro hole left by Brexit, and the EU's changing priorities also need more funds to solve.
The EU wants to increase spending on climate, immigration, digitization and security, but net contributors refuse to increase funding, while beneficiary countries want to retain their support for agriculture and development.
The summit was originally scheduled to last only one day on the 20th, but due to the failure of the member states to reach an agreement, the meeting was delayed to the 21st. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the end of the meeting that there are still too many differences between them to reach an agreement.
It is reported that even if the proposal is unanimously approved at the EU summit, it must be approved by the European Parliament before it can take effect. However, because the total budget set by the EU Council is 230 billion euros less than the target set by the European Parliament, the risk that the EU's 2021-2027 long-term budget cannot be implemented on schedule is increasing.
EU officials have warned that if member states do not reach an agreement by the end of the year, the EU will have to freeze most projects beyond 2021. EU student exchange programs, research positions, regional engineering, border security, etc. will be severely affected.
Data Map: German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Photo by Zhang Canlong of China News Agency
27 countries have obvious differences around 4 major problems
"European Political Weekly" reported that the EU member states' budget positions are very divergent, mainly focusing on four aspects.
First, the starting point of the discussion is the size of the budget. The European Commission recommends that the total budget of the latest budget account for 1.074% of the gross national income (GNI) of all member states, or 1.09 trillion euros. However, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, and Denmark and other net budgeting countries require that the proportion be no higher than 1%, and the net beneficiary countries in Southeast Europe such as Greece hope to further increase the proportion.
Second, how to divide the "cake"? The EU budget is mainly based on three major parts, namely agricultural subsidies, the "Solid Fund" to promote balanced regional development, and the budget to promote new topics such as research, innovation, immigration, and defense.
Germany and other net-funding countries have low dependence on EU subsidies and advocate reducing financial support for traditional projects and increasing support for new issues such as climate policy; while less developed member states in the east believe that reducing the "Solid Fund" will restrict their development Widen the gap with developed member countries.
In addition, France, as a developed country and a big agricultural country, is in an awkward position, unable to pay more because of its own financial difficulties, and does not want to cut agricultural subsidies too much.
Third, does the budget “return” mechanism continue? According to the current rules, if a member state ’s benefit to a certain EU budget is significantly lower than that of another country, it can claim that the EU returns part of the “contributions” it has paid. After Britain's "Brexit", France and other countries hope to end the "return" mechanism, but the Netherlands, Austria and other countries resolutely demand that they be retained to avoid further imbalances in the contributions of member states.
Fourth, is the budget tied to politics? Some Western European and Nordic member states hope to use the EU budget to strengthen restrictions on the political and legal conditions of member states. Once they are found to violate traditional EU values, they can cut off related budget support. This measure was seen as a case against Poland, Hungary and other member states that have political resistance to the EU, causing a lot of controversy within the EU.
Challenges to EU solidarity in post-Brexit era
This summit is the first meeting of EU leaders since the formal "Brexit" of Britain. The Associated Press said that the solidarity demonstrated by EU member states on the issue of Brexit has disappeared and replaced by a struggle around their own interests.
The summit once again revealed the differences in priorities between the northern and southern European and Eastern European countries, developed and underdeveloped economies. In recent years, due to the impact of factors such as Brexit, the refugee crisis and the rise of right-wing forces, within the European Union, Central and Eastern European countries and Western European countries have continued to falter.
Grazke, director of the European Center of the University of Warsaw in Poland, said that at present there are many differences between Eastern and Western European countries in terms of justice, immigration, environment, budget allocation and foreign relations. This is one of the key factors affecting the future direction of the European Union after Brexit Whether these differences can be bridged is also a test of the EU's decision-making power and execution power.
At the same time, the European Central Bank warned that the economic outlook should not be too optimistic. Economic reports suggest that the eurozone is still suffering a severe slump. The European Central Bank has also warned of potential trade issues, saying the EU may lose some of its exports due to "trade transfers," noting that the United States and the European Union have still not addressed the issue of tariffs.