EU leaders agreed on Friday to a significantly reduced seven-year budget worth 960 billion euros (US$1.28 trillion) — the first cut in spending in the 27-country group’s history.
European Council President Herman Van Rompuy announced that the agreement had been reached after two days of nearly round-the-clock negotiations — the longest negotiations of his tenure in office. The final total was about 40 billion euros less than the European Commission had originally proposed.
The issue of what to give to the EU was made more difficult because its members were struggling with poor economic growth and harsh austerity measures, he said.
“We simply could not ignore the extremely difficult economic realities across Europe,” Van Rompuy told reporters. “It had to be a leaner budget.”
He said it would amount to 1 percent of the EU’s gross national income.
The final number was far less than the 1.03 trillion euros the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, had originally proposed. The 959.988 billion euros total will cover the years 2014 to 2020; the budget for the years 2007 to 2013 was 975.777 billion euros.
The two-day fight over the cap on what the EU can spend on everything from infrastructure to development aid laid bare divisions over what the role of the union should be.
“The effort was worth it,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.
“The agreement is good and important,” she said, adding it would show solidarity and ensure predictability.
The European Parliament must still approve the deal — and lawmakers there suggested that the drastic cuts proposed would be unacceptable.
“This agreement will not strengthen the competitiveness of the European economy, but weaken it,” a statement by the leaders of the four largest political groups in the parliament said. “It is not in the prime interest of our European citizens.”
The proposed budget has also been criticized for cutting too deeply into aid for poor countries and other programs critical for Europe.
At its heart, the hard-fought summit in Brussels was a tussle about what the EU stood for: Some leaders argued it was a drag on national budgets in tough economic times, while others said the economic crisis highlighted the need for closer and deeper ties, which would compel the EU to do more than in the past.
The deal that emerged seemed to lean more toward the position of countries led by Britain, which insisted that the EU could not look for more money at a time of belt-tightening across Europe.
“The UK public can be proud that we cut the ‘credit card level’ for the first time ever,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said. “I wanted a cut. That is what I achieved today. Working with allies, this is a great deal for Britain and a great deal for Europe. And a great deal for European taxpayers.”
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
A registered sex offender from the US who went missing after entering Taiwan has been found and would be deported in light of the risk he poses to the public, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday. The agency launched a search for Levi Forrest Wallace, 43, after it was informed by the American Institute of Taiwan (AIT) that he had entered Taiwan on Oct. 2 on a tourist visa. He was not on the US government’s wanted list. Wallace was sentenced to 90 days in jail with a two-year probation in 2001 after he was convicted of sexual delinquency of
RSS