17 EU countries urge Ireland to protect farm and regional funding

Seventeen European Union member states, including Estonia, have called for agricultural and regional funding to be preserved in the bloc’s next seven-year budget. ERR reported that the appeal sets them against Germany and other wealthier countries seeking to cut the budget.

In a letter disclosed on Friday, the countries urged Ireland, which currently holds the EU presidency, to leave intact nearly €900 billion in proposed spending covering agricultural and regional development support, Politico reported. The draft budget plan is expected next week.

The signatories are Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. They wrote to Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin that funding for cohesion policy and the common agricultural policy should be maintained in full in the next multiannual financial framework.

The appeal comes after a group of six countries led by Germany renewed its call earlier this week for cuts of hundreds of billions of euros. Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Romanian President Nicușor Dan coordinated the initiative and are arranging an informal meeting of the 17 countries alongside the European Council on October 15 and 16, where the budget will be discussed.

The European Commission proposed a budget of nearly €2 trillion for 2028 to 2034 in 2025, with plans to shift hundreds of billions of euros from agriculture and cohesion funding to priorities including defence and competitiveness. The so-called Friends of Cohesion group warned that further reductions to agricultural and cohesion funding would weaken the budget and risk undermining public support for the European project.

Ireland’s negotiating document will set the basis for discussions among the 27 EU leaders at an October summit in Brussels. Governments are seeking a final agreement by the end of the year, before national elections in France, Poland and Italy could disrupt negotiations.

Another sensitive issue is the introduction of new EU-wide taxes, or own resources, to finance the budget. The Commission has proposed five new levies expected to raise €66 billion a year. France strongly supports the package, while several governments oppose individual proposals, concerned they could be affected disproportionately.

The 17 countries said any new own resources should be genuine, fair, simple and non-regressive. They also called for repayments of post-pandemic debt to be postponed and opposed budget rebates for wealthier countries.