MADRID: The EU budget amounts to 155 billion euro/year; Barely 1% of GDP. Two-thirds go in agriculture and cohesion, and re is little flexibility when unexpected crises come, a constant for 10 years. The disturbing departure from UK, one of biggest contributors, is to subtract 12 billion annuals. The Great Recession has highlighted shortcomings of euro, and associated crises (immigration and security challenges) make it a leap to be able to react. For all this, negotiations on Budgets 2021-2027 will be hop: rich countries have trouble scratching ir pockets; The beneficiaries of funds are trying not to lose a single euro. Spain is a green dog.
European funds and agricultural aid to maximum. In May, Brussels will present a proposal to make budgets an instrument with greater political traction. Berlin and Paris, despite ir differences, are in that line. France is advocating for modernization of agricultural policy, although this sector is being defended with fingernails and teeth. And Franco-German axis is committed to reforming cohesion policy in search of a sort of lost utopia: The return of convergence to EU. Berlin and Paris want to link funds to adoption of reforms and to avoid politicizing justice which is almost norm in some partners. Amagan to link funds to beneficiaries to welcome refugees, despite rejection of east.
Paris proposes to harmonize corporate tax if countries want to receive funds, and has made Berlin close to accepting that euro needs an anticrisis budget. Rich versus poor: a poisoned negotiation Spain wants budgets ( multi-year financial framework, in impossible jargon of Brussels) to “shape a stronger and more integrated Europe.” This is how document that fixes Spanish position begins in a negotiation that can be guessed complicated: Parliament and Commission intend to close it in May 2019, before European elections. There are two sides to this negotiation. The Rich (Holland, Germany, Austria, and Nordics) do not want to provide an additional single euro, although Berlin could change its position according to new government. The group called Cohesion— basically, eastern partners — do not want to lose money in view of widening of distance between centre and periphery. The United Kingdom led rich in last agreement, in midst of a European crisis, which required a final sprint of 27 hours in a row. cohesion. Madrid denounces that north-south divergences are “a source of tensions”. But it does not accept big changes: it defends to continue linking funds to unemployment. It proposes that y weigh more variables that can benefit some regions, such as demographic trends and climate change policy. And it points out that part of funds must depend on absorption capacity, which is higher in Spain than in or countries.
