Siegfried Mureşan: "We will not accept that the EU budget is a collection of 27 national plans"

Although security and defense, along with competitiveness, will be the priorities of the European Union budget for the period 2028-2034, the European Parliament calls on the European Commission to maintain separate and clearly defined allocations for Cohesion Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), on clear and substantiated legal grounds, said MEP Siegfried Mureşan, EPP Vice-President and co-rapporteur for the future European multiannual financial framework, at a press conference in Strasbourg yesterday.

Siegfried Mureşan stressed that these two traditional policies must not be diminished or subordinated to the new strategic directions of the Union: "We defend the Cohesion Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy, because the EPP is the party of farmers and we will not accept a budget in which funding for farmers is not clearly ensured."

The EPP Vice-President noted that the basis for the future Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) will be presented by the European Commission on 16 July, and the document will mark a new direction in the distribution of European funds for the next decade. "This is a very important moment, as it will set the tone for the spending of European money for the next ten years and will chart the direction of regional public spending, as well as public and private investment,” the Romanian MEP said.

The European Parliament draws attention to the fact that the needs of the regions and support for farmers must remain at the heart of European policy.

Siegfried Mureşan said: "We want a separate budget for agriculture and cohesion, with allocations for regions based on real needs on the ground, because regions know their own needs best, better than the capitals of the Member States or Brussels.”

Regarding the request of farmers from EU member states to be granted subsidies equal to those received by their counterparts from the states located in the western part of the community block, Mr. Mureşan mentioned: "The request of farmers from those states is a legitimate one and we want the allocations to be made on the basis of the CAP according to clear and equal indicators for all. I know that some progress has been made in this regard in the current multiannual European financial framework and I believe that the alignment of these agricultural subsidies needs to be made in the 2028-2034 financial framework, because we believe that a unified approach is needed. We want convergence on this issue as well and for the subsidies to be aligned through the CAP and not to leave it up to the member states to decide, through national plans, the value of these subsidies, which would lead to an increase in current inequities.”

Furthermore, the EPP Vice-President warned that the unity of the European budget should not be compromised by imposing fragmented national plans: "We will not accept that the EU budget becomes a sum of 27 national plans of Member States' preferences, without establishing common long-term objectives at European level. Resources must be allocated on clear criteria, not according to the preferences of individual Member States.”

Siegfried Mureşan also stressed that the EPP's openness to budgetary reforms, but also the need for clear and balanced implementation. He invoked the experience of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (RRM), which, although it stimulated reforms, led to the blocking of investments unrelated to them.

"The good thing is that the MFF has stimulated reforms, but the link between investment and reforms has often been unclear, which has led to the blocking of investments that had nothing to do with reforms. We do not want payments for farmers to be blocked in the next European multiannual financial framework because, for example, the pension reform has not been achieved,” said Mr Mureşan.

Regarding the overall size of the budget for the period 2028-2034, asked if the minimum amount proposed by the European Parliament would be 1.3 trillion euros, Siegfried Mureşan said that the new MFF would be "ambitious” but realistic, given the fiscal constraints of the member states. He said that new own resources were needed so that the EU could finance its objectives without placing an additional burden on taxpayers in the member states.

"We know that we have limited fiscal space among member states, which cannot contribute significantly more to the European budget. That is why we will introduce new own resources, to make the budget more transparent and more European," said Mureşan, adding that these funds should also cover the repayment of community loans taken to finance NextGenerationEU.