EU Budget: Parliaments must be at the centre of European debate

“We must not pass the burden of the interest rates of the new Coronavirus Recovery Fund to future European budgets and to the next generations. We need to find other sources of income for Europe. For this, the European and national parliaments have to pull together", said Manfred Weber MEP and Vangelis Meimarakis MEP today, ahead of a joint video conference of EPP Members of national parliaments and EPP Members of the European Parliament.

The conference is to debate the national parliaments’ ratification of new direct revenues for the EU budget. At stake is that, for the first time in history, the EU will take up common debt to finance the €750bn Recovery Fund. Without reforming the EU’s decades-old revenue system, the result will be enormous financial burdens.

"This is not to pay Brussels, but to pay for projects in the regions and the farmers and the researchers that are working on our shared priorities”, warned Weber, Chairman of the EPP Group in the European Parliament.

“Today’s inter-parliamentary meeting with our colleagues from national parliaments, under the auspices of the EPP Group, is incredibly important as the reform of the revenue system will be ratified by national parliaments. The EU budget and the Recovery Fund are joint actions to alleviate Member States’ economies, which have been heavily affected by the pandemic", explained Meimarakis, who is a Vice-Chairman of the EPP Group responsible for relations with national parliaments.

“Having been a national parliamentarian for over 30 years as well as Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament, I know that national parliamentarians are the voice of their Member States and a bridge between the citizens and the EU. Today, more than ever, it is necessary to stand by and support our local communities and their citizens”, Meimarakis concluded.