Carla Tavares warns decisive moment EU budget negotiations

A mrs Tavares warned today that this is a “moment of decisive negotiations” for the Community budget (2028-2034) and criticised that the proposal still does not include support for outermost regions such as the Azores and Madeira.

Carla Tavares, co-rapporteur of the European Parliament in charge of the negotiations for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (FPC 2028-2034), said that the proposal put forward by the Irish Presidency is ‘too far away’ from what Parliament’s position is and warned that this is a ‘moment of decisive negotiations’.

The MEP elected by the PS spoke to Portuguese journalists at a press conference in Brussels outside the plenary session of the Committee of the Regions.

The Irish presidency of the EU Council proposed 8% cuts in the European Commission's proposal for a multiannual budget for 2028 to 2034, for a total of €1.62 billion, without substantially moving cohesion and agriculture.

“ We are dealing with a proposal that, compared with the current financial framework, even has a reduction of about 10%, about EUR 162 billion. When we compare it with the Commission's proposal, we are talking about a reduction of about 8%, about EUR 141 billion and therefore far from what the ambition and mandate the two rapporteurs have hoped to negotiate, but essentially what is the ambition that we believe should have the next financial framework ", he stressed.

This is because, he stressed, “it is necessary to continue to invest in traditional European policy, in the areas of cohesion, agriculture” and, at the same time, “to have the financial conditions to respond to the new challenges, including the issues of competitiveness, security and defence”.

“ And the European Parliament does not accept not to look at these two areas as two sides of the same coin. Having competitiveness implies cohesion”, he stressed.

Outermost regions such as the Azores and Madeira are not mentioned in the proposal for the next long-term Community budget.

“What we are told is that this process will remain for a final phase of negotiations, but for now it is not in this package that the Irish presidency is presenting, and therefore, of course, for a number of Member States, particularly Portugal, it cannot be, we cannot accept that something that is in the Treaties and that is related to support, in particular for the Azores and Madeira, is not yet included in this proposal,” said Carla Tavares.

Instead, the MEP took part in a joint press conference with the President of the European Committee of the Regions, Kata Tutto, who considered that the idea of a Europe of the regions “is dismantled” with the proposal for a Community budget (2028-2034) which is currently under discussion.

Kata Tutto highlighted three important aspects of the current proposal for a long-term Community budget: size, architecture and governance.

“And of these three, two are radically changing, and it is not the dimension,” he said, explaining that the great change has taken place in architecture, that is, where the money that is spent together by European countries goes, and governance, who decides, is very concerned about these two aspects.

And in the context of governance, he pointed to the “fact of ignoring the regions”.

“ The idea of a Europe of regions is dismantled with the proposal for a budget, and there is a major change in governance, with a transfer of competences from regional to national and national level to the European Commission,” he said, stressing that cohesion policy is “placed in a national context, to compete with other priorities” such as food security, migration, fisheries, housing, water resilience, adaptation to climate change, mitigation, energy security and energy accessibility.

“ There is no guarantee that it will reach all regions, that it will contribute to the transition of all regions and that it is disconnected from the single market,” he said, arguing that “cohesion policy is not a traditional and outdated charity fund”.