EU seeks €9bn extra from states

The European Commission requested an extra €9bn yesterday to fill a shortfall in the European Union’s 2012 budget.

The demand is likely to anger those EU governments calling for restraint from Brussels to reflect the austerity being imposed at home. It could also complicate talks on EU spending for next year and beyond. Yesterday, MEPs backed inflation-busting rises in EU spending for the next eight years.

Most MEPs backed a call by the commission for a 6.8% rise in EU spending next year and an overall increase of at least 5% in the EU’s long-term 2014-2020 budget.

The commission insisted that the extra €9bn for this year was needed to meet legally binding funding commitments made by the EU and its member states, and none of the money would be spent on bureaucrats in Brussels.

“This is not about the commission asking for more money but about member states honouring the commitments they have made to provide uninterrupted funding to students… or to poorer regions,” president Jose Manuel Barroso said.

Last December, EU negotiators agreed a 2% rise in the bloc’s budget for 2012 to €129bn, rejecting a commission proposal for a 5% rise despite warnings that the bloc could run out of funds this year.

Governments also signed a joint declaration calling on the commission to submit an additional budget request if the funds agreed for 2012 were insufficient to cover spending commitments.

But Dutch finance minister Jan Kees de Jager yesterday rejected the commission’s stance. “The proposal for the supplementary budget — the extra budget for this year — to move the bill for all financial setbacks to the member states is unacceptable to us.”

The commission said €3.1bn would be covered by EU revenue, leaving the 27 governments with a bill of €5.9bn.

— Reuters