António Costa is convening a two-day summit in Brussels next week
There can be no deal on the EU’s next long-term budget this year without agreement on new taxes, António Costa, the president of the European Council, has told the 27 national leaders.
Costa penned a formal invitation letter to leaders, who will come to Brussels next week on 18 and 19 June, to continue thrashing out work on the proposal for a seven-year EU budget worth almost €2 trillion.
“We should focus our discussion on the key elements to facilitate an agreement by the end of the year,” Costa wrote in the letter dated 10 June. “This includes making progress on new own resources, which will be decisive for matching our ambitions with the necessary means.”
Raising new taxes, known in EU jargon as ‘own resources’, is one of the most controversial elements of the Commission’s blueprint, which has already been attacked by defenders of traditional spending priorities, from regional development funds to farm subsidies.
