ZAGREB, September 16, 2019 – Croatia advocates that negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) should be concluded by the end of the year, but it is likely that the issue will be on the agenda during its presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2020, the State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Andreja Metelko-Zgombić, said on Monday in Brussels.
Metelko-Zgombić was attending a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council which among other things discussed the situation with negotiations over the next EU budget for 2021 to 2027.
The European Commission put forward a proposal in May 2018 envisaging a budget of €1135 billion in obligations, which is 1.11% of the Gross National Income (GNI) of the 27 EU member states.
In one of the European Council’s earlier conclusions, EU leaders expressed their willingness to complete negotiations on the MFF by the end of this year, but this seems highly unlikely.
“Officials have advocated that it would be good for the negotiations to end and Croatia certainly advocates that a compromise is achieved, which would take into account the ‘red lines’ or rather the priorities that each member state considers important. Along these lines, we want an agreement to be reached as soon as possible but there is a likelihood that it will await our presidency,” Metelko-Zgombić said.
European Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources Guenther Oettinger underscored the need to agree on the MFF by the end of the year.
“My big concern is that Europe will be in a difficult economic and geopolitical situation if there is no budget by the first of January,” Oettinger said.
He added that if negotiations continue at this pace it will take years to reach a compromise.
The European Parliament and countries in eastern and central Europe that are currently receiving more from the European budget than they are paying into, advocate an even bigger budget than the Commission had proposed.
The European Parliament is asking that the budget should be 1.3% of GNI. On the other hand, wealthier member states headed by Germany want the budget to be limited to 1% of GNI.
Croatia has said that the Commission’s proposal is acceptable to it.
“The amount the European Commission has proposed is acceptable to Croatia on the condition that sufficient funds are provided in that budget for all those priorities and for what Croatia considers should be incorporated into the budget,” Metelko-Zgombić said.
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