DIf it didn’t go according to plan, it became apparent early on. EU heads of state and government arrived in Brussels on Thursday afternoon to negotiate the Union’s seven-year budget. It’s over 1,000 billion euros for 2021-2027, and the dispute over the budget has been deadlocked for months.
Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, who coordinates the negotiations, had therefore carried out a week-long shuttle diplomacy between the European capitals in the run-up to the summit in order to remove the greatest obstacles in advance with the heads of government and to work out a compromise proposal.
Apparently without success: By late Thursday afternoon it was clear that there would be no point in conducting the discussions in large circles – the positions were too far apart for that.
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Instead, Michel decided to interview all 27 heads of government in one-on-one meetings. The talks continued until Friday morning after six o’clock; According to Michel diplomats, France’s President Emmanuel Macron spent an entire hour alone.
Angela Merkel had not been there for a long time; she had been the second Michel had spoken to. After the interview, she disappeared into her hotel. A large proportion of the other heads of government followed their example: they went out to eat with their employees, like Macron on Place Jourdan, or went to bed and woke up for their talks on time. There was not much left of the summit.
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The results of the interviews were to flow into a new compromise proposal – but it was a long time coming: It should be available in the morning at 10 a.m. The date was later postponed to 12 p.m., then the summit participants were put off hour by hour. The choreography seemed to be slipping off the top of Michel.
At around 6 p.m. the document finally appeared: two pages that experts from the EU Commission had written with Michel’s employees. Nine points, lots of white space. “There wasn’t even a second proposal that was worked out,” Merkel later said. “The proposal that the President-in-Office developed with the Commission was not presented in detail because it was already clear that the rough data of the proposal would not be sufficient to bridge the differences.”
Michel obviously wants to profile himself as a doer
And this is how it happened: At 6:00 p.m. Merkel, Macron and the other heads of government sat down to discuss the paper. A good hour later it was clear that you would not get together this weekend, the differences were so big.
Charles Michel seemed determined to make a name for himself as a doer at the beginning of his term and to present an agreement at the end of the summit. The former Belgian prime minister did not want the participants to leave until they had agreed, it was said in advance.
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On Friday morning after the night of the one-on-one talks, Merkel and Macron had also contributed to get the summit moving. After all, Merkel is one of the few heads of government who have participated in the spectacle, which only takes place every seven years. The German Chancellor and the French President took part in talks that Michel held with the four particularly economical net payers and a number of net recipient countries. It was useless, in the end the differences prevailed.
It was clear from the start that the summit would be difficult: after Brexit, the remaining members had to partially compensate for the UK contribution. This particularly affects net payers like Germany and the Netherlands. Many countries that have been net recipient countries in the past few years have developed so economically that they will ultimately get less money from Brussels or even become a net payer in the coming years, for example Ireland.
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The countries concerned – Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands – do not want to accept that the Commission also wants to use Brexit to abolish the discounts for net payers.
The fact that northwestern European governments and Brussels want to link the disbursement of EU funds to the fact that the recipient countries comply with the principles of the rule of law creates additional potential for conflict – and, as expected, pushes Poland and Hungary.
“The differences were just too big”
In addition, the EU Commission, but also countries like Germany, are modernizing the budget and wanting to invest more money in the future on climate protection, digitization or the defense of the EU’s external borders. To this end, agriculture and the so-called cohesion policy, which is supposed to advance poorer regions, should be cut. This is badly received in many capital cities.
Ultimately, it was apparently the so-called friends of cohesion, 16 net recipient countries from Eastern and Central Europe and Italy, who decided that they could not expect much more. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán made it clear on Friday afternoon that he had finished with the summit. “The differences were just too big,” said Merkel afterwards.
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MEPs criticized the failure. It is no surprise that the summit did not produce a result, said Niclas Herbst, the spokesman for the CDU / CSU group in the European Parliament. “Too many conflicting interests had to be reconciled and the draft by EU Council President Michel was disappointing. During the negotiations it went in the wrong direction, ”said the CDU politician. The Green MP Rasmus Andresen gave free rein to his disappointment in the evening. “Fighting for decimal places for national selfishness is a farce,” said the politician. “The heads of state and government have failed to find common answers to pressing questions.” Andresen is the only German on the parliamentary team who negotiates the budget with the states.
Charles Michel now has to sweep up the pieces and come up with a new compromise proposal. It is not unusual to need two or even three summits to agree on the EU’s long-term budget. It is unclear, however, when the heads of government will meet next to discuss them.
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