António Costa’s EU budget tour is reaching the bigger capitals, with Berlin, Warsaw and Madrid on the agenda for the coming days. The settings may change, but the main question the European Council president is asking remains the same: Can we all agree on new EU taxes to help fund the long-term budget? Introducing new EU-wide levies is crucial to lay the groundwork for a budget agreement by the end of the year, before national elections in France, Spain, Italy and Poland in 2027 threaten to disrupt the negotiations. Costa — who has been touring EU capitals to assess what each wants from the budget — will bring up the topic of taxes when he meets Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Wednesday. The following day, he will meet Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in Madrid, along with Portugal’s Luís Montenegro in Lisbon. He will finish the week in Finland, meeting Prime Minister Petteri Orpo on Sunday. Ambition cannot be realized without the right financial instruments,” Costa said on Saturday. “A budget not just about numbers, but as the ultimate political choice, a choice about our future”. The topic of new taxes — own resources, in EU-speak — was also the focus of a meeting of European ministers in Dublin last week, when the real horse-trading began over the European Commission’s €2 trillion Multiannual Financial Framework proposal for 2028-2034. Countries that pay more into the EU budget than they receive are resisting higher contributions, while governments across the bloc support increased spending on defense, security and competitiveness. That leaves new EU-level revenue streams as the most plausible way to expand the budget without directly asking national treasuries to pay more. “We cannot do more with less,” Spanish Secretary of State for Europe, Fernando Sampedro, said in Dublin, summing up the fundamental tension underpinning Costa’s tour.
Costa puts EU taxes at heart of his grand budget tour – POLITICO
Fonte: Politico – di: Zoya Sheftalovich e Gregorio Sorgi
