Vocal Voices

At the risk of skirting close to the edict, the day has finally arrived. The EU is coming together to "agree" their budget for the next 7 years.

The situation would make fractuous look serene. Everyone is an unhappy camper.

I'm sure it will be followed closely in the press now we are not attending.

This will be important over the coming year because those who lose the most will be more likely to exact their revenge by supporting the UK in the year to come.

Ferrets in a sack. Excellent analogy.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ost-brexit

I don't wish any ill on them. What does surprise me is that Macron always seems to be on the verge of falling out with the Germans, or at least to always be sounding off.
Tell the truth and shame the devil - German money keeps the EU going and if anyone says who should be paying what, it's them.

It will be interesting to watch, as an outsider at least. Poland has refused to sign up to the 2050 climate agreement and is being barred from 50% of their cohesion funds.

The fun thing is that Poland is the largest recipient of cohesion funds but, erm, Germany is the second largest. Sounds like a rebate to me but they also have one of those too.

It is hardly surprising that Merkel and Macron are going head to head.

Of course Poland can veto the budget, but then they would be stuck with the current formula.

Except they can't because the current formula breaks down at the end of Dec.

So, for some of the countries, they can't live with the new budget and they can't stay with the old.

That is going to cause a lot of friction.

This impacts me because it changes our French taxes. So I'm interested.

Right Suff, I get that now.
The news in the UK is incredibly insular. We get hardly any European news. Will Macron's pension reforms impact on the general level of French taxation? (I suppose they would have to) or has that all stalled now?

Macrons pension reforms would impact taxation positively. If they do not reform, them tax will have to go up.

Right now his reforms are stalled. Eventually they will be watered down and a smaller hike in age will happen.

It will keep the status quo but kick the can down the road without huge tax hikes.

It goes from a 4 shirter to just about done on day 1.

Nobody is backing off, the EU is unwilling to take less money and nobody wants to bridge the gap.

The takers want to keep taking and won't countenance that they get to take less (including France), Germany wants its full rebate rolled over (bet most didn't realise that Germany had a rebate) and the rest of the contributors won't countenance a 20% uplift in their payments.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... -shortfall

It looks like the aspirations of the EU have become a "cost too far" for some.

The general consensus is that unless somebody moves they might as well go home and do it all again in March.

Probably can kicking time then.
At the end of the day, he who pays the piper calls the tune; and that's Germany.
The French won't like it (them and others) but that is the reality.

They can't kick the can. The clock is ticking and the bomb is going to go off Jan 1 2021.

They are going to have to fix this and someone is going to have to blink first.

The Swede's, the Danes, even the Irish having a go

Have a look at the Google News portal on the subject. Plenty said there.
https://news.google.com/stories/CAAqOQg ... id=GB%3Aen

Some cracking statements.

Varadkar

We accept that as a country, as a growing economy will full employments we will have to pay more into the EU budget over the next seven years.

“But we can’t accept in return for paying more in we would see very significant cuts to cap and to cohesion funds

It's called balancing the budget.

SWEDISH Prime Minister Stefan Lofven

'Brussels is NOT my priority'

“Countries with stronger economies need to pay for those who don’t have such strong economies.

“But we can’t increase our fees. We need the budget to stay at one percent. We cannot accept such a dramatic increase.

“The EU proposal was a 44 percent increase in our fees. That is not doable at all."

Erm he means the rest of the EU, surely? Not Brussels, they are just the office.

France has infuriated EU colleagues with claims that those blocking cuts to the EU budget are anti-European.

From Yahoo finance.

Even if a trillion euros ($1.1 trillion) sounds like a lot, it actually amounts to about 1% of the gross national income of the 27 nations combined. The debate is over some 0.3 percentage points.

Michel came into the summit with a draft budget at 1.074% of EU gross national income. The parliament wants 1.3%, while the EU’s powerful executive arm, the European Commission, prefers 1.11%.

It’s not just about convincing reluctant member countries to stump up funds. The European Parliament must also ratify any final budget agreement and the EU lawmakers are not happy.

“At the moment, we remain 230 billion euros ($248 billion) apart," European Parliament President David Sassoli said this week.

For their own sakes national leaders will all be doing this. Saying "Yes, we agree - but we can't pay any more".
Their domestic audience will demand it.
But they can't have it both ways.