The Twenty-Seven left on a failure Friday evening in Brussels. They did not reach a compromise on the 2021-2027 European budget. Because he knew it was useless to continue discussions which were already very tense, Charles Michel put an end to the summit before he turned into a fiasco. " We have worked very hard to try to reach an agreement ... unfortunately, we have found today that it was not possible to reach an agreement ", said the President of the European Council early in the evening . " The differences were too great, " admitted Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The decision fell at the end of a crazy day during which the European leaders multiplied the meetings in restricted circles without ever managing to find the ways of passage. The meeting in Vingt-Sept, originally scheduled for 10 a.m., has been repeatedly postponed. It was finally held at 7 p.m. but ended. Only about twenty minutes to see that neither the “frugal” countries - the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Austria - nor the cohesion states were ready to go further in the discussions. Charles Michel had nevertheless put on the table a proposal " adjusted " compared to that presented a week earlier.
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Wishing to make a gesture towards the "thrifty", he proposed to reduce the overall budget envelope to 1.069% of European gross national income (GNI), against 1.074% previously. With these 10 billion euros in savings on a budget of some 1,000 billion, we were still far from the 1.00% demanded by the frugal. But the president of the European Council also multiplied the concessions vis-à-vis these countries and Germany, which is always very reasonable when it comes to big money. Despite the departure of the British, the discounts were maintained. The Netherlands, leader of the frugal, would also benefit from an important gesture on the VAT. While the Member States keep only 15% of the revenue collected, they would keep the trifle of 25% until 2023 instead of 20% currently. These gestures were ultimately in vain because these countries have given up nothing. " The 1% is the quickest way to get our agreement, " summed up Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte without blinking after the summit.
Macron regrets "disunity"
By dint of giving to the frugal, Charles Michel ended up welding even more the 17 countries of cohesion which, during these two days of summit, were astonished at the place taken by the four "stingers". Tired of war, the Hungarian Viktor Orban even went to meet the journalists to explain to them that the cohesion countries were going to claim a budget at 1.3% of the European GNI, ie 200 billion more than desired by the frugals. " We cannot build a consensus on a minority position ", railed the Portuguese Antonio Costa. At least this summit will have enabled the President and the Chancellor to stand together. Emmanuel Macron also welcomed " a Franco-German couple at work to try to overcome these divisions ". But the president especially criticized " the disunity " of the Twenty-Seven and the " blocking coalitions ".
On the eve of his trip to the agricultural fair, the Head of State also wanted to reassure the farmers: " if no agreement is found in the coming months, the current system will continue to persist ". At this stage, no one knows when the next summit on the European budget will be convened. The date of March 5 had been considered. Considering the extent of the blockages, it will probably take more than two weeks to appease the spirits.