– Negrescu is the S&D Group responsible for negotiating the annual budget of the European Union –

MEP Victor Negrescu, responsible for the European budget, discussed in Strasbourg with the European Commissioner for Budgets, Johannes Hahn, about the budgetary difficulties faced by the European Union in the context of the proposals made by the European Commission on next year’s European budget, the long-term budget review and the increase in interest rates for the payment of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism.

“The European Union is facing a possible budgetary crisis, insufficient funds to meet the current challenges, to offset the financial impact of inflation on the implementation of European programmes, to respond to possible new emergencies or to have the desired global impact. We need a real review of the European budget in the long term so that the Erasmus student who leaves Romania to study can afford mobility or so that the farmer can benefit from a subsidy to ensure the proper functioning of his farm. The European Commission will most likely propose this month a new European tax on profits to be applied in the coming years, which will aim to provide a financial surplus to the European budget to cover the substantial increase in interest payments related to the recovery and resilience mechanism. For 2024 alone, the interest increase is €1.9 billion more than the €2.1 billion forecast (so we have to pay €4 billion in 2024 on interest alone)”, said the Social Democrat MEP.

Romania’s representative in the European Parliament, Victor Negrescu, expressed concern that instead of the funds being spent to support the population, European resources are allocated to interest payments.

“Basically we pay more on interest than we spend annually on the flagship European programmes, with the annual Erasmus budget for 2024 being less than €4 billion. According to data presented by the EU executive, the EU needs to pay between €17 and €27 billion by 2027 over and above the planned €14.9 billion in loan repayments. We need to change the budgetary paradigm, to understand that we cannot do much with a European budget that represents only 1% of Member States’ budgets and to return to democratic budgetary control exercised by the European Parliament”, explained MEP Victor Negrescu.

The European Commission has proposed that the EU budget for 2024 should amount to €189.3 billion, to be complemented by €113 billion in grant payments under NextGenerationEU, the EU’s post-pandemic recovery instrument.

Of this total, €53.8 billion has been proposed for the Common Agricultural Policy and €1.1 billion for the European Fund for Fisheries, Maritime Affairs and Aquaculture, for European farmers and fishermen, but also to strengthen the resilience of the European Union’s fisheries sector, but also to strengthen the resilience of the agri-food and fisheries sectors and to ensure the necessary room for manoeuvre for crisis management.

€47.9 billion has also been proposed for regional development and cohesion, to support economic, social and territorial cohesion, as well as infrastructure supporting the environmental transition and Union priority projects.

The budget is to be negotiated later this year by representatives of the European Parliament, the EU Council presidency and the European Commission.

At the same time, the European Commission announced on Tuesday its proposals for the MFF revision, in order to finance the EU’s new priorities.