The EU’s annual budget negotiations have always been difficult, but this year they are particularly fraught.
EU countries, the European Parliament and the Commission are currently negotiating next year’s funding. The negotiations were cut off on Friday night when there was no agreement in sight.
During the weekend, consensus was sought on, for example, supporting Ukraine, accepting refugees and the use of money by the EU institutions in different configurations.
Tomorrow, Monday, we will continue again at the common table. The deadline for the settlement is Monday at midnight.
However, the biggest problem is the Parliament’s spending of money. Many member states, including Finland, oppose increases in administrative expenses.
Meppi’s wages will increase by 640 euros
First it became clear that MEPs and thousands of civil servants will receive seven percent salary increases. It is due to inflation control. It has already been agreed years ago in the EU that salaries will be tied to the cost index.
Read more: The salaries of MEPs and EU civil servants are rising dramatically – a justified reason, but one that arouses criticism
EU countries are also annoyed by the excesses of the parliament’s budget. Among other things, the Parliament wants to hire 52 new clerks and 116 assistants – even though more people were hired to support the work of MEPs already last year.
Member of the European Parliament and deputy member of the budget committee Petri Sarvamaan (collective) thinks it is common for member states to live to the limit.
– The member states always cut, and the parliament tries to bring [rahaa] back, and this is how we reach a balance, explains Sarvamaa.
He understands the citizens’ indignation about salary increases, for example, but the MEPs themselves have not influenced them.
In Sarvamaa’s opinion, there are grounds for establishing new positions.
– I myself have been negotiating about additional posts related to cyber security and hybrid threats, there will be around 50-60 of them. It is absolutely necessary to get these people there, because it is about the common safety of all of us, says Sarvamaa.
Second Deputy Member of the Budget Committee, Mauri Pekkarinen (central) again opposes the increase in personnel expenses.
Year after year, the Parliament has pushed for a larger budget than the member states or the Commission. This time, it increased the total of each item in the budget.
– We just made the usual budget into a special one, budget meppi, Romanian Nicolae Ştefanuta glowed (you switch to another service) under negotiation.
“The peace of the castle has been broken”
The MEPs may now have gone too far. Already in the summer, the ambassadors of the member countries criticized plans to exceed the budget.
In their opinion, the parliament must also do its part and curb spending in times of crisis. Other EU institutions have to cut their spending.
It is difficult for state representatives to explain the increase in MEPs’ expenses to voters. At the beginning of the negotiations on Friday morning, a large number of member states announced that they were against the increase in the parliament’s administrative expenses.
– A certain kind of castle peace has now been broken. The practice has been that the Council, i.e. the member states, do not intervene in the Parliament’s budget. Now, in a way, you can say that the cup has gone upside down, Vice-President of the EU Parliament, the Greens Heidi Hautala says.
New premises are also planned
And that’s not all. After returning from the corona quarantine, the parliament has put the wind in the air.
MEPs have established their new chairman Roberta Metsola already in the season, for example, a whole new main department. Parliament is also planning to acquire a new building in Strasbourg.
Turkey would have the Osmose office complex, built by France without asking and unexpectedly, opposite the main door of the parliament. France wants to boost Strasbourg’s position as the seat of the parliament, and that is probably why it is “force-feeding” the new Osmose to the Euro representatives.
– The interesting thing is that this whole construction project started from where it started, because no one seems to know anything about it – and this is a scandal in itself, says Hautala.
Hautala suspects that the French state and an “informal group” of the parliament have had discussions about the building over the years. However, no one admits to having ordered it.
– The French state, the Strasbourg regional administration and the city, they are all a bit forced to feed the parliament a new, fine building… as if as some kind of indication that the parliament will stay in Strasbourg and perhaps pay a little of the debt that our long-term absence caused there due to the pandemic, says Hautala.
A political game in the background
According to Hautala, no one has shown that the parliament needs a new building. Old facilities could be renovated.
As one option, it has been proposed in the parliament that the old building be turned into a hotel for the use of members of parliament. That idea has apparently been abandoned in practice.
– Who among us would want to sleep at work, says Hautala. In addition, the hotel’s security arrangements would be very expensive.
– Yes, this also shows that we have a huge need for internal administrative reform, that there must be transparent and daylight-resistant procedures.
In the background, there is probably a complex political game, where the pieces are political offices, positions of power, and buildings as well.
Hautala has written to the president of the EU Parliament about his concerns To Roberta Metsola an open letter (you move to another service), which he “burned through”. The episodic reports in the summer, for example Helsingin Sanomat (you switch to another service).
“The greens are talking about Jesus”
Metsola is Petri Sarvamaa’s party mate in the right-wing conservative EPP. It is the largest group in Parliament.
Sarvamaa says that he finds political appointments “disgusting”, but still, according to him, all groups do them.
– There have been a lot of them in the world. I said this openly in our group, that it doesn’t look good, says Sarvamaa.
However, Sarvamaa criticizes the Greens for “Jesusing”. According to him, there is a behind-the-scenes battle between the political groups in the Parliament, and the Greens bring problems “very often exactly in this way to the public”.
For example, it is still too early to discuss the acquisition of the Osmose building.
– It is a matter that is completely unfinished. It is still in preparation, and the cost effects are wanted to be plus or minus zero, says Sarvamaa.
The budget parties did not want to comment on the progress of the situation while the negotiations were in progress over the weekend.
Finland is represented at the budget tables by the Minister of Finance Annika Saarikon (central) Secretary of State Katri Makkonen with their staffs and parliament, including the members of the budget committee Eero Heinäluoma (sd.) and Nils Thorvalds (r.)
What thoughts did the story evoke? You can discuss the topic on 14.11. until 11 p.m.
Text changed on 13.11. at 17:46: Corrected Katri Makkonen’s title as Minister of Finance, not Undersecretary of State of the Ministry of Finance.
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