EU asks for $72B extra budget from member states

By Agnes Szucs

BRUSSELS (AA) - The European Commission asked on Tuesday EU member states to top up the bloc’s budget with €66 billion ($72 billion) as it presented its amendments to the 2021-27 financial framework.

“We are asking our 27 member states €66 billion to deliver on the priorities of Ukraine, migration and competitiveness,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at a news conference in Brussels.

She argued that the EU’s seven-year budget must be reviewed because “we are in a completely different world compared to 2020” when it was adopted.

“We saw three years of crisis after crisis” exacerbated by Russia’s war against Ukraine and “we felt the aftershocks very painfully in energy prices rising, higher inflation, higher interest rates,” von der Leyen said.

According to the proposal, the EU would create a “financial reserve” to support Ukraine with €50 billion worth of loans and grants in the four upcoming years.

The EU executive body demands a further €15 billion to “strengthen the management of our borders.”

More intense work with neighbors and enhanced international partnership is needed, von der Leyen asserted.

Therefore, she said, they need an additional budget for Syrian refugees in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Türkiye.

In addition, the EU Commission would like to create a so-called Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform by supporting deep tech, clean tech and biotech industries with a €10 billion package to boost the EU’s resilience and competitiveness.

The amendment’s calculation involves credit guarantees, public investments and the reallocation of already granted budget lines.

The bloc’s 2021-27 budget amounts to over €2 trillion in current prices.