Not even the slightest advance. What's more, the first meeting to negotiate the next European budget has ended in a setback, because the proposal that Ireland had presented, which included a cut of 140,000 million euros, has been discarded and now it will be necessary to work on a new one. Start making numbers again. The European Council chaired by António Costa has committed to presenting a new one in "the coming weeks", ratifying a failure that was already announced given the conflicting positions between the frugal countries and the so-called Friends of Cohesion, which includes Spain. Some want more cuts, others reject the ax blow.
The disappointment has been so notable that the press conference that was planned has not even taken place. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and Costa himself were to intervene at the end of the negotiation. But they preferred not to give explanations because there was little to explain beyond this new proposal.
Costa's objective before the start of the summit that will be held today and tomorrow in Brussels was for the budget to be closed this year. At the meeting of presidents and prime ministers that will be held in December, specifically. In this way, during the next financial year all legislative development would be carried out and the accounts would come into force in 2028 in a timely manner. But that scenario now seems impossible.
Last Saturday, Ireland, the country that holds the rotating presidency of the Council, presented the aforementioned budget proposal with a cut of 140 billion compared to the accounts projected by the EU last year. The figure took into account the strong cut demanded by the frugal, to whom, however, this data still seems insufficient.
"Everyone wants to go fast, but a good deal and not a bad deal is important. At the moment, the Irish proposal is not good enough to achieve an agreement. We have to reduce it and modernize it if we want to be prepared for the future," said the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Rob Jetten, upon his arrival at the summit.
And the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, had already announced on Wednesday in the German Parliament that the resources available to Europe "are limited", so there will be "no choice but to once again reduce the current proposal in all its areas."
"We believe that the final agreement should ensure that the budget can address existing and emerging priorities, while protecting key policies," the Friends of Cohesion had noted, for their part, also before the discussion in the Council. A total of 17 countries, mainly those in southern Europe, calling for "ambitious, fair and balanced" accounts.
And although it is much less important, the elections in Spain do not help either. A good part of the negotiations will be carried out with Pedro Sánchez as acting president, but during the final summit in December, and as long as the polls are met, the leader of the outgoing Executive. The Government affirms that there is no problem with this, that it is perfectly legal and that it is also politically possible.
But other voices point out that it would be a difficult political gesture to accept for a president, and from a country as important as Spain that is now going to become a net contributor, to approve the budgets with a president who would leave office just a few days after that December summit.
