“The Chancellor apparently no longer has the strength to change the mind of the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban,” fears MEP Rasmus Andresen.
(Photo: dpa)
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Brussels The EU summit of heads of state and government on Thursday and Friday in Brussels threatens to become an acid test. Because there are two huge problems.
The Brexit negotiations are stalling – the transition phase will expire at the end of December – and future trade relations with the kingdom have still not been clarified. And there is still no compromise that could induce Poland and Hungary to give up their blockade of the future EU budget. The result: next year, for the first time in 32 years, the EU would have to make do with an emergency budget – and the urgently needed corona aid cannot flow either.
In the dispute over the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), i.e. the EU budget for the years 2021 to 2027, and the Corona reconstruction fund totaling 1.8 trillion euros, the number of votes for a Plan B in the EU is increasing in Brussels – Advocate budgetary policy if the right-wing national governments in Warsaw and Budapest do not give up their veto.
“We want to hold Europe together, but if the blockade by the Polish and Hungarian governments continues, we will support a plan B in order to move forward without them,” announced Manfred Weber, leader of the conservative EPP in the European Parliament, on Tuesday.
In the dispute over the MFF and the reconstruction fund, no possible compromise can currently be seen. European politicians are therefore already warning of a Waterloo at the meeting of heads of state and government at the end of the week. “A failure of the summit is becoming more and more likely,” said MEP and budget politician Rasmus Andresen (Greens) the Handelsblatt. “Hungary accepts that there will be an institutional crisis in the EU.”
Poland, on the other hand, is a little more willing to compromise. “The financial emergency in Poland is greater than in Hungary, and the pressure from civil society is greater there,” said Andresen. With more than 23 billion euros in EU funds, Poland benefits much more than Hungary with over six billion euros.
Most recently, the EU Commission proposed that the reconstruction fund – the EU Commission has given it the PR name “Next Generation EU” – should be adopted as part of an “enhanced cooperation” without Poland and Hungary. With this plan B, the two Eastern European countries would not receive any money from the 750 billion euro fund.
With the “enhanced cooperation” proposal, the remaining 25 EU members could also place the planned European bonds on the market.
Poland’s Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau called on Wednesday for more time to resolve the dispute over the EU budget. A compromise is possible, but if no agreement can be reached at the summit in the next two days, another meeting of the heads of state and government may have to be scheduled this year, said the Polish chief diplomat in a radio interview.
Alternatively, the negotiations could also be postponed until next year, when Portugal takes over the EU Council Presidency. Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also said that another EU summit should not be ruled out.
“Increased cooperation” is a method of overcoming blockages
The reason for Warsaw and Budapest’s veto: the two increasingly autocratically governed countries are resisting the introduction of a rule of law mechanism that links the disbursement of EU funds to the rule of law – and on which all EU institutions have already agreed.
Budget expert Andresen therefore described Plan B of “enhanced cooperation” as a “feasible path”. His party colleague Sven Giegold, spokesman for the Greens delegation in the European Parliament, also sees the Commission’s proposal as positive and described it as “the better alternative to an intergovernmental solution”. If there is a new compromise by the EU country leaders, it is to be feared that the rule of law mechanism will be weakened again. Or the EU climate targets are softened, since the countries there are also among the brakes.
Nevertheless, there are still numerous legal questions, insiders report in Brussels.
The principle of “enhanced cooperation” is a procedure in which at least nine EU states can agree to work together in a certain area without the other states having to participate. The EU treaties allow this approach in order to overcome blockades – which occur more frequently in Brussels’ political business.
The EU Commission must present a specific proposal, which the EU Parliament and the Council must approve. In recent years, for example, this procedure was used when it came to the introduction of a European divorce law.
If there is no agreement on the EU budget at the EU summit in Brussels, an emergency budget would have to be drawn up on a monthly basis.
(Photo: dpa)
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Meanwhile, the European Parliament no longer relies on the authority of Angela Merkel (CDU) at the EU summit. “The Chancellor apparently no longer has the strength to change the mind of the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán,” fears MEP Andresen.
“If there is no compromise at the EU summit, the German Council Presidency would have failed.” The introduction of a rule of law mechanism is one of the greatest goals of the German Council Presidency, which ends in three weeks.
If there is no agreement on the EU budget at the EU summit in Brussels, an emergency budget would have to be drawn up on a monthly basis so that the money can flow for administration, agriculture and humanitarian aid. All other tasks would have to be specifically regulated in a bridging budget.
The MFF has so far provided the EU Commission with a budget of 164 billion euros for the coming year. The European Parliament recently pushed through a series of increases, such as increasing the environmental protection program by 42 million euros and in the digital sector by 26 million euros.
Unresolved Brexit dispute makes budget solution difficult
The stalled trade deal negotiations with the UK are also driving the EU into crisis. “There is no substantial progress,” said European Minister of State Michael Roth (SPD) after the deliberations of the European Ministers on Tuesday.
This also has consequences for other policy areas. “The unsolved Brexit makes it difficult to resolve the dispute over the budget and the Corona reconstruction fund. Because the negotiations tie up enormous political resources, ”said budget politician Andresen on Tuesday.
Hopes in Brussels now rest on a “dinner for two” between the British Prime Minister and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the end of Wednesday evening: Boris Johnson is traveling to Brussels for this. The personal meeting at the highest level should bring the hoped-for breakthrough at the last minute.
Previously, they had been on the phone for an hour and a half earlier in the week, but were unable to resolve the remaining issues in the free trade talks. An agreement has not yet been reached because there are still “significant differences” in the areas of fishing, fair competition and control mechanisms, they said.
“From Parliament’s point of view, we are running out of time. We are an independent institution and we will not simply sign off an agreement, ”said EPP boss Weber on Tuesday. “We need time to assess them, which is a very large and technical matter if an agreement is reached.”
If no agreement is reached on contentious issues such as fisheries and fair competition rules, there is a risk of tariffs and other barriers to trade between the UK and the EU. The transition period for Brexit expires at the end of the year. Although London officially left the EU at the end of January, it was still part of the EU internal market and the customs union until the end of the year.
“We want an agreement, but not at any price,” said Roth after the meeting of the European Ministers. EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier has been speaking with his British colleague David Frost for months, but without having achieved a breakthrough.
More: The dispute with Poland is about values that are non-negotiable
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