Ursula von der Leyen\u2019s plan for the EU\u2019s biggest ever budget has sparked uproar inside the European Commission, with colleagues warning the president\u2019s ultra-centralised style has already compromised the \u20ac2tn cash call.<\/p>\n
Prepared for months and largely kept secret from von der Leyen\u2019s team of commissioners, the draft 2028-2034 budget plan prompted rare internal pushback that forced significant concessions in the hours before publication. <\/p>\n
The revolt has underscored the long-bubbling resentment at her \u201crubber stamp\u201d approach towards the commission after years of walled-off decision-making that critics say has made Brussels inflexible and prone to mis-steps.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have never seen it this bad,\u201d said one senior diplomat from an EU member state who has worked on the past three budget negotiations. \u201cNobody knew what they were getting or what they were paying until the last minute.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u20ac2tn spending plan, which will be funded by national capitals and new taxes levied directly by the commission on companies, tobacco and other items, will replace the existing \u20ac1.2tn budget in 2028. <\/p>\n The chaotic backroom negotiations, and the numerous objections from commissioners on everything from the scale of new taxes to spending levels for poorer regions, set the stage for brutal talks with European capitals, officials said. The EU budget, one of Brussels\u2019 most complex and fraught negotiations, requires unanimous support of 27 member states.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it\u2019s this bad inside the commission, who knows how bad it will get when the real negotiations with the member states start,\u201d said a second senior EU diplomat.<\/p>\n A meeting of the heads of cabinets of the commissioners \u2014 known as Hebdo \u2014 to debate the final proposal began on Monday night and concluded just before midday on Wednesday. <\/p>\n The talks were abruptly postponed and restarted mid-discussion throughout Tuesday, according to two people present, before continuing until almost 2am and restarting at 8am on Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not surprising that a Hebdo on the budget lasts more than 15 hours. What is surprising is that it\u2019s [the evening before adoption],\u201d said a second EU official. \u201cThe frustration is shared at all levels of the commission.\u201d<\/p>\n On the eve of the proposal, von der Leyen\u2019s own budget commissioner Piotr Serafin, who is tasked with selling the significantly enlarged budget to EU capitals, had \u201cno clue\u201d of the complex formula that would determine how much each country would receive, according to a person involved in the discussions.<\/p>\n Despite other commissioners making pleas for advanced notice of the budget breakdown, they were only given final figures of their funding in the minutes before a meeting scheduled to sign it off. That meeting started four hours later than scheduled.<\/p>\n One commissioner asked von der Leyen during the meeting: \u201cWhy are we just getting a debrief?\u201d according to a third EU official.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were basically asked to rubber-stamp this thing\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009That\u2019s not the way you run the commission,\u201d said a fourth EU official. <\/p>\n As opposition mounted in the week leading up to the proposal, von der Leyen made several concessions. These included ringfencing \u20ac5bn in direct subsidies to farmers and fishermen, reinstating a social spending fund, maintaining specific support for poorer regions, and doubling the threshold for a new corporate tax to a turnover of more than \u20ac100mn.<\/p>\n Von der Leyen rejected criticism of her management style: \u201cI spoke to each and every commissioner one after the next,\u201d she told reporters after the budget had been unveiled. \u201cThere was a lot of contention\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009not everyone was satisfied.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe last four weekends they have all been working.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009after midnight,\u201d von der Leyen said of senior EU officials. \u201cThis is a marathon to get there because it is a huge budget\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. It is normal that at the end there is a crunch time.\u201d<\/p>\n She added: \u201cThere is strong support. The collegial decision is taken.\u201d<\/p>\n The budget will take up to two years to negotiate, von der Leyen told reporters following the release of the proposal. <\/p>\n The commission said that despite the almost-doubling in size of the budget, member states\u2019 contributions would not increase. Instead, the shortfall will be made up by \u201cown resources\u201d or new EU levies worth around \u20ac400bn.<\/p>\n These include taxes on big companies, e-waste, a fee on packages from third countries, and hikes in tobacco taxes, as well as increases in existing sources of revenue like custom duties and VAT. <\/p>\n Although that would in theory raise around \u20ac58bn in annual EU revenue, according to the EU executive, it would still not cover the full increase in the budget\u2019s size.<\/p>\n \u201cThey live in their own world,\u201d said one treasury official in a member state.<\/p>\n Frustrations over von der Leyen\u2019s centralised style have long been simmering, both within the team of commissioners and the body\u2019s civil servants. <\/p>\n Senior officials say von der Leyen and Bj\u00f6rn Seibert, her powerful chief of staff, have narrowed the circle of decision-making even further in their second term. Dissenting voices from von der Leyen\u2019s first five-year term, such as France\u2019s Thierry Breton and Denmark\u2019s Margrethe Vestager, did not return for her second stint. <\/p>\n Despite the unrest inside her commission, only Hungary\u2019s Oliv\u00e9r V\u00e1rhelyi formally registered his dissent during Wednesday\u2019s meeting to approve the budget, according to people briefed on the discussion.<\/p>\n \u201cIn order to get something done, you need a pull-aside with Bj\u00f6rn,\u201d said a fifth EU official. \u201cBut that is not a way to run a European Commission.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Von #der #Leyen #botches #2tn #budget #proposal #chaotic #infighting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ursula von der Leyen\u2019s plan for the EU\u2019s biggest ever budget has sparked uproar inside the European Commission, with colleagues warning the president\u2019s ultra-centralised style has already compromised the \u20ac2tn cash call. Prepared for months and largely kept secret from von der Leyen\u2019s team of commissioners, the draft 2028-2034 budget plan prompted rare internal pushback […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[528,527,153,530,525,531,526,529,524],"class_list":{"0":"post-305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-2tn","9":"tag-botches","10":"tag-budget","11":"tag-chaotic","12":"tag-der","13":"tag-infighting","14":"tag-leyen","15":"tag-proposal","16":"tag-von"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"European](\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/https%3A%2F%2Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%2Fproduction%2Fc0711528-4062-402d-b1a8-5b5d148e3e16.jpg?source=next-article&fit=scale-down&quality=highest&width=700&dpr=1\")
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