More cuts 'necessary' says German ambassador to EU, ruling out common borrowing, EU-level taxes

Let's talk about the budget and let's be blunt, is the EU trying to build a budget that it simply cannot afford? The EU is building a budget which we need for the 21st century, but obviously the Commission proposal was far too high. And so Germany expects that this budget is being cut by at least several hundreds of billions of euros. Now the Irish presidency put a new proposal on the table, a NEGO box, which was already cut by 140 billion, so I would say we are not there yet. But we are now on the way to kind of try to find an agreement, but more cuts will be definitely necessary. The EU summit last week didn't get us any closer to a final budget. positions are still very much entrenched. What's happening next? I think no one really expected that the summit last week would already conclude. That was pretty much awaited, that the leaders will present again their positions. Now, we expect that the President of the European Council now presents a new NegoBox, and we think it's definitely necessary to have this new NegoBox with new content in November because there is an informal European Council scheduled for the end of November and we need this one to talk about the new proposal then by the president of the European Council in order to hopefully conclude then just before Christmas. That is the plan and but it is an ambitious plan but we are ready to follow it through. Germany is the biggest net contributor. How much Which money is Germany prepared to put on the table? I don't want you to reveal your negotiating position, but tell us about what's at stake here. What we need is a budget which is sustainable in financial terms and also sustainable in terms of content. So we need a modernized budget, a budget which focuses on competitiveness, on innovation, on research, on defense and security. Ukraine. On Ukraine. and of course we have these traditional expenditures like agriculture and cohesion. They will still be a part of the budget but currently agriculture and cohesion make about 66% of the EU budget. The Commission has suggested to reduce it to 50% and we think that is a sustainable approach to reduce it to 50% it's still than half of the overall budget. So now basically we have to build upon this new structure but it is still the overall amounts which are contested and as i said germany needs and we're not alone we have a few partners you know the so-called modernizers to cut it down google modernizers modernizers okay if the member states refuse to increase their contributions would germany be prepared to accept a new common borrowing No, definitely not new common borrowing, because we believe if we go down this path, we lose our sovereignty. What we need to do is to build upon what is affordable. We are also ready to talk about new own resources. The Commission has put some ideas on the table. We are ready to look into it. We are not ready into looking into taxing European companies now at the European level, Because we believe this is adding insult to injury, we want to keep European companies here in the internal market and not discourage them and to invest them somewhere else. On Ukraine, we've mentioned it already. On top of the 90 billion loan that is already earmarked for Ukraine, the country would need several billion, additional billion euros for the war effort. But if you want to bring the budget down, and we have this additional 70 million, that's the number that is out there on top of the budget. Does that mean that European farmers and families and other beneficiaries will have to get less so that Ukraine can get more? No, this doesn't mean that. Because anyhow, the money which we provide for Ukraine, particularly the 90 billion, which were made available this year, are outside of the regular European budget. This is something, it's a loan, which we organized with the help of the headroom, the so-called headroom of the Multiannual Financial Framework, so it's outside of the budget. Now, Ukraine and President Zelensky was present at the summit. He explained again the financial needs. we have to look into it now especially for next year i think leaders saw basically that for this year also thanks to the 90 billion which we organized Ukraine has the sufficient funds but we have to make sure that they get over the winter and into the next year and then we decided or the leaders decided that now we have to look into details what is needed and how we organize support. So the discussions on that at the leaders' level will continue. But one thing is very clear. The leaders also reaffirmed their continued support to Ukraine. So we will continue to support Ukraine to exercise its right of self-defense against the war of aggression by Russia. Let me repeat that. So Germany is prepared to keep Ukraine afloat financially, come what may. Germany stands with Ukraine and the European Union stands with Ukraine. But of course, we also expect from our international partners, the G7, also to stand with Ukraine. And about the details of the support, leaders will have to discuss now. And the final question, there are more diplomatic efforts underway, orchestrated by the Americans, to find a way towards peace. And we've all witnessed the U.S. pressure campaign against Ukraine, especially President Zelensky. Are you really confident that these diplomatic efforts will lead to something sizable? We don't see any readiness by Russia to engage in any kind of negotiations. Russia continues to bombard Ukrainian cities. Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians. So we are not there yet where anyone can talk with Russia because Russia is not there. Russia is not ready. So, of course, our support for Ukraine will continue in this respect and the European Union will continue to defend, you know, not only the right of self-defense of Ukraine, but also the security architecture in a rules-based international order. So that's what we rely on, that the European Union is now the actor which defends the rules-based international order and our security architecture.