Wednesday, January 18, 2023

MOAR: "EU Needs Member States to Replenish Bloc’s Budget, Official Says"

 From Bloomberg via Yahoo, January 18:

The European Union will need to ask member states to make fresh contributions to the bloc’s budget to fund a growing list of priorities, including support for its industries and addressing fallout from the war in Ukraine, the EU executive arm’s top economy official said.

“We need in a sense to replenish the EU budget, because many of the reserves were used during the first years,” European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said on Wednesday during an event hosted by Bloomberg.

The bloc agreed on a seven-year, €1.8 trillion ($2 trillion) budget in 2020, including an unprecedented pandemic recovery fund financed through joint borrowing. But the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis and the need to support European companies to counter a $369 billion US climate law has put the EU budget under severe strain.

Member states would need to bolster the EU’s long-term budget for 2021 to 2027 via additional national contributions during its mid-term review, which is supposed to be concluded this summer, an EU official said....

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