Christodoulides calls for EU long-term budget to be shorter-term

President Nikos Christodoulides late on Thursday night called for the European Union’s multiannual financial framework, the bloc’s long-term budget, to be reduced from its customary seven-year period to cover just three or four years, as European heads of government wrangled late into the night, attempting to negotiate the next one. The next multiannual financial framework is set to cover the years between 2028 and 2034 – something Christodoulides said may be inhibiting those talks. “We’re discussing the budget in 2034 and now we’re in 2026 … You don’t know what’s going to be the situation in 2030, 2031. I mean, look what happened with Covid, with the Ukrainian war … It’s not possible to declare all your priorities today,” he told news website Politico. As such, he said, a shorter-term budget, lasting only three or four years, may provide an “easier” route for EU member states to reach an agreement. 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Christodoulides’ proposal would require treaty change Additionally, the change Christodoulides proposed would require a rewrite of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which states that the multiannual financial framework “shall be established for a period of at least five years”. The seven-year period has been customary since the “Delors II package”, named after then European Commission president Jacques Delors, outlined what was then known as the EU’s “financial perspective” for the years between 1993 and 1999, with the previous “Delors I package” having only lasted from 1988 to 1992. For a multiannual financial framework to be implemented, the EU’s member states must unanimously agree to it, and the European Parliament must then ratify it. However, under Christodoulides’ proposal, a change to the TFEU would also require that the national parliaments of all 27 of the EU’s member states ratify the shorter minimum period covered by the budget before negotiations on that budget could even begin. This would be despite Christodoulides and many others across Europe having said that it is their aim to have the next multiannual financial framework devised and agreed upon by the member states by the end of this year. On this front, he said yesterday that should an agreement not be reached by the end of this year, “I believe we would be sending a negative message, not only to European citizens, but to the world”. Macron ‘said he cannot negotiate after December’ This deadline reportedly hardened during Thursday’s negotiations, with Brussels-based news website Rapporteur writing that French President Emmanuel Macron had told the other 26 leaders that France cannot agree to any budget deal after December, in view of the presidential elections being held in the country in April. It reported that holding negotiations in the first months of next year would be “too politically sensitive”. “No one is unaware of the election deadline. I want a substantial budget, but I cannot finalise it on behalf of France between January and April,” Macron reportedly said. Christodoulides and Macron on Thursday It had been widely understood that the EU and its member states planned to reach an agreement on the multiannual financial framework by the end of this year so as to ward off the risk of elections next year in France and Poland – and the possible election of the far right in both countries – derailing efforts to reach an agreement. Snap elections in Spain next month, however, may have put paid to those hopes, with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez sending his country to the polls after its parliament voted down emergency legislation aimed at stemming rising housing costs. That election will take place on November 29, with it currently appearing likely that the centre-right PP and far-right Vox party will both make gains, though Sanchez’s centre-left PSOE may still be able to form a coalition after the election. Christodoulides: Everybody used to understand that we need … an agreement by the end of the year Of this, Christodoulides told Politico on Thursday night that “everybody used to understand that we need to finish a political agreement by the end of the year”, but that “now, with the situation in Spain, elections there”, this may be less possible. With it now exceedingly unlikely that an agreement will be reached in Brussels this week, it is expected that European Council President Antonio Costa will call an extraordinary summit on November 26 – three days before the Spanish elections – and that EU leaders may meet again in December in the hopes of hashing out a deal. All 27 leaders and Costa remain in Brussels on Friday, with negotiations expected to continue.