Carla Tavares warns about the weakness of the majority in the EU budget

A socialist MEP Carla Tavares, European Parliament co-rapporteur for the European Union (EU) budget in the long term by 2034, today warned that the institution will have to give consent, warning the fragility of the necessary majority.

“ There can be no financial framework without Parliament's consent and it must always be borne in mind that in the interim report [on this subject] we had 370 votes in Parliament, the majority was 361 votes, that is, we had nine votes more than the majority required, and that the reality in Parliament is also fragile," said Carla Tavares.

In statements to Portuguese journalists in Brussels after having accompanied the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, to the Council meeting Today’s European dominated by the negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2034, the PS MEP compared: “If the Council needs 27 agreements [between Member States], we need 361 agreements”.

“Parliament will never give consent at the 25th hour, it is not possible, there is no way for this to happen, and so these months that we now have by the end of the year are absolutely essential to finding a way,” he added.

According to Carla Tavares, there are “three paths, three solutions”.

One of these possibilities is to ‘reduce the package further’, namely the traditional cohesion and agricultural policies and the new competitiveness and security policies, which according to the responsible ‘is not at all a path that Parliament accepts’.

“There is a second possibility that is a greater contribution from the Member States, we already realize that there is no understanding of the Member States on this issue and, therefore, we need to look at a new package of own resources and that is what we expect, from this meeting today, more insistently, both on the part of the work of the European Council, the various Member States, the Commission and Parliament,” he said.

The Socialist warned of the difficulty of ensuring a stable parliamentary majority, even among the political groups traditionally involved in European commitments, namely the European People's Party (PPE), the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the Liberals of the Renewal of Europe.

“ These nine margin votes [...] are nothing,” he said, stressing that divisions between MEPs, including within the political groups themselves, make support for the proposal currently under discussion uncertain.

For the MEP, it will be necessary for the Council, the European Commission and Parliament to compromise in order to reach a compromise solution.

“We must each take a step towards finding the middle of the bridge,” he concluded, defending a balance between the Union’s political priorities and the financial means needed to achieve them.

The Multiannual Financial Framework sets the EU spending limits for several years.

Its adoption requires unanimity in the EU Council after consent of the European Parliament.