Macron warns EU leaders they need to agree budget by end of year

BRUSSELS — French president Emmanuel Macron warned fellow EU leaders they need to get a deal on the bloc's seven-year budget by the end of the year because it'll be too politically difficult after that, four European diplomats said.

His words rachet up the pressure on the EU to overcome their significant differences over the coming weeks.

During a closed-door discussion on Thursday evening, Macron said he wouldn't have a political mandate to sign a deal close to the French presidential elections in April 2027, the diplomats, all briefed on the conversation, said.

Macron "said that, starting from January, there will be no political room" for concluding an agreement, one of the diplomats said.

The EU’s 27 governments are divided over the total size of the 2028-2034 budget. Leaders gathering in Brussels are discuss the Irish plan, which envisions cuts of €159 billion in current prices to the Commission’s nearly €2 trillion proposal.

European Council President António Costa is pushing leaders to finalize negotiations during a summit in December — before elections in France, Italy and Poland in 2027 threaten to derail the talks — but some governments and EU officials have said such a timeframe is very unrealistic.

One EU diplomat dismissed Macron’s intervention as “a threat to support [Costa] on December deadline. “EU would be ungovernable if we were to take into account all the local elections,” he added.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who is leading the polls to replace Macron, pledged to halve France’s contributions to the EU budget if she comes to power.

During a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, Le Pen accused the EU of speeding up talks to prevent France's next leader to have a say.

Several leaders are unwilling to commit to the end-of-year deadline, fearing that time pressure will undermine their leverage in the negotiations.

“We will not sign an agreement that is not beneficial to us just to meet a deadline,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told the country's parliament on Wednesday. “We will sign an agreement only when it is right for Italy.”