Yesterday, the European Parliament held a debate on the EU budget for 2023, and its position on this issue will form the basis for the EP-Council conciliation procedure, which will run from 25 October to 14 November.
If an agreement is reached between the EP and the Council in the next three weeks, the EU budget for 2023 should be formally approved around the turn of the year in November and December this year.
On this occasion it should be clarified that the budget for 20023 is already the second budget of the current financial perspective for 2021-2027 and at the same time the last budget from which payments will be made from the previous financial perspective for 2013-2020, in connection with the functioning of the n+ rule 3.
Objections to the shape of the budget
I have spoken in this debate and made three serious reservations about the current form of the EU budget for 2023.
The first major problem with this budget is the still too low level of payment appropriations. This budget is already the second budget of the financial perspective for 2021-2027 and at the same time the budget in which we definitively end the settlement of payments from the previous financial perspective for 2013-2020 related to the implementation of the n + 3 rule .
Therefore, the payments in this budget should be set at the highest possible level in order to avoid a situation where there is a shortage of payment appropriations in the budget and the EU does not pay the outstanding bills, which is particularly embarrassing, and which was the case in 2014-2016.
Unfortunately, payments have been planned very conservatively, so there are serious concerns as to whether they will be sufficient to cover all needs, especially in heading 2a, in a situation where the proposed margin of free payment appropriations is reduced after the EC correction letter of 5 October from over EUR 5.5 billion to EUR 3.3 billion, ie more than EUR 2.2 billion.
When I turned to Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn, who is present in the plenary, in the context of insufficient payment appropriations, I said that insolvency was not the best advertisement for the European project.
Inflation underestimated
The second problem in this budget is the underestimation of inflation, the average rate of which is now over 10% and whose peak is likely to peak next spring, after the heating season, and is likely to be a few percentage points higher.
This of course applies to all budget expenditure, and it is especially visible in the case of the indexation of the salaries of employees of EU institutions for the following year, this ratio was set at only 6.9% in the final version of the budget, although it was proposed in July to index wages to the 8.6% index.
Such high inflation will obviously affect the wage expectations of all workers, leading to wage pressures and, as a result, possibly the so-called second-round inflation (workers are forcing wage increases due to the rise in the cost of living due to the current inflation).
Finally, the third problem of the 2023 budget, which I have raised during this debate, is the means to help Ukraine. They are far from adequate, even if we take into account the proposals in the EC letter of amendment. no increase in resources for refugee countries bordering Ukraine.
In my view, in connection with the Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, including heating in major cities, we can expect a new large wave of war refugees to come to these countries during the winter months.
I have emphasized that my country, Poland, has so far paid almost EUR 9 billion for the reception of refugees, and it is difficult to accept that in 2023 the EU aid to countries hosting refugees will be as symbolic as in 2022.
Source: wPolityce