Slovakia’s Finance Ministry is worried about the European Commission’s proposal to revise the EU budget with an extra €68.5 billion for the 2021-2027 period, wondering why there is a need to replenish migration reserves with an additional €15 billion.
Last week, the European Commission proposed to revise the EU’s 2021-2027 budget, but the Slovak Finance Ministry is questioning the need to do so.
It is “more ambitious than we expected”, and justification for new spending “is not fully clear”, the Finance Ministry said in a statement to EURACTIV Slovakia.
“The situation in individual areas (e.g. migration) is not fundamentally different from the situation at the time when the multiannual financial framework was adopted,” the ministry added.
While the ministry acknowledged that available reserves were used to deal with the situation in Ukraine or natural disasters in Syria or Turkey, it said, “we need to be sure that the replenishment of the reserves, as proposed by the European Commission, is fully justified”.
Regarding the €1.9 billion meant to cover the EU’s administrative costs, Slovakia admits it “cannot be ignored in today’s period of increased inflationary pressure” but underlines it needs to be “carefully specified”. New spending is necessary due to inflation clauses in employment contracts.
Slovakia also welcomed the creation of a new special instrument, dubbed EURI, meant to cover for increased costs of financing the NextGenerationEU. Under the revision, money meant to pay for interest on the EU’s joint debt would be separated from the general budget, as ballooning costs threatened to dry up money from other areas.
The Commission is asking for an extra €19 billion for now, as the interest rose from 0.09% in June 2021 to 3,09% this April.
Overall, the Finance Ministry is “concerned that the excessive ambition of the proposal may lead to very difficult negotiations, which may significantly slow down the process of approving the revision”.
For its part, the Commission expects “swift agreement” immediately after the summer and warns that budgetary constraints will otherwise be felt in 2024.
Consent to the budget revision is also needed from the European Parliament.
(Barbara Zmušková | EURACTIV.sk)
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