Interview: Should the EU budget be renegotiated or not?
131 views · Published 25 February 2013 · 4:52 · Indexed 8 October 2026
Channel: European Parliament · 2013 · News & Politics
Comment on European Parliament Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/europeanparliament On Monday, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy came to the EP. He defended the agreement on the EU's budget for 2014-2020. He didn't manage to convince everyone. Two MEPs gave us their opinions, Spanish MEP Salvador Garriga Polledo and British MEP Timothy Kirkhope. What do you think about the agreement? "For Spain, the figures are positive. So from a Spanish perspective it's good. The problem is that for Europe as a whole it is insufficient, however you look at it." "Certainly the budget decisions that have been taken so far by Council are of course good, not only for the UK but for the whole of Europe as well. Clearly this is making it plain to the people of Europe, which we represent of course, that we cannot live outside our means, that we've got to show an example, as well as the national governments, of restraint in terms of the budgets that we have." Does the agreement need to be renegotiated? "Given that the Member States are responsible for the figures, despite the Lisbon Treaty saying otherwise, the Parliament wants to negotiate the Parliament's implementation methods. A limited budget over too many years may have very negative effects on EU growth. So at least we'll try for a shorter period or the possibility of transferring unspent funds to other areas." "The negotiations were very thorough, the discussions were very thorough. All the issues, all the concerns were laid on the table in the discussions that the leaders of our countries had and they've gone into great detail. What has come out of that has been a settlement which I myself would be very happy with on behalf of the people I represent." What signal will the European Parliament give at the plenary session in March? "The Parliament's negotiations should take place once the Council's figures have been approved in March given that we have two opportunities to say no, either now in March or for the final agreement, which should take place within several months - we hope in July - once these budget implementation methods have been negotiated. I believe the Parliament will say yes." "They should not be giving warnings to anybody. We should be giving a clear warning to the leaders of the groups to behave responsibly. This is not a time to be confrontational, not a time for them to take a different view, because, after all, this idea of having secret votes in the Parliament is quite exceptional, quite unconstitutional in my view, and it just shows that perhaps some of these people are going to be confrontational or going to be bullying, going to give strong warnings, when in fact they haven't got the courage to display what their real views are. What do you think to an agreement revision clause? "The basic problem is that the Council adopts revisions by unanimity. So we're in the same situation. Any Member State can block a revision clause that within three years could increase the EU budget if it turns out to be insufficient. The Parliament would accept a revision clause if the Council would adopt it by a qualified majority. By unanimity it's impossible as there will always be a state blocking it." "Well it would delay matters and if the impasse continued it would mean that we'd have to operate on the old principles, on the old agreements, and year-to-year on our budget. That's the most unsatisfactory situation for Europeans who need to know precisely where they are and what monies are going to be expended on European projects." In the worst case scenario, what will happen if there's no agreement? "The problem would be that we'd have to extend the current budget, which makes it quite difficult to implement the structural funds and new programmes for the Member States. The fundamental problem, which the EP isn't happy about, is that the budget the Council, the Member States have approved is insufficient to cover the political objectives that Parliament and Council have adopted over the last few years. So either we reduce the objectives, increase the budget or implement it better." "I think it's unlikely that that would be acceptable and I would really rather not think in terms of failure here because I'm still very hopeful myself that the Parliament will see sense and that it will support Council and will therefore give its backing to the people of Europe as a whole." EuroparlTV video ID: 3864d4a9-c1b3-4c9c-a13c-a16c012e7c24
