The 'frugals', a group of richer countries who pay more into the EU budget than they take out, are lunching to plot their next move
Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, convenes his “like-minded” counterparts from Finland, Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark to discuss the post-2027 budget over lunch on Thursday.
The meeting comes as negotiations about the seven-year budget are about to enter a decisive stretch, with key questions on the scale of spending, how to spend it and, critically for the grouping, how to pay for it, remaining unresolved.
António Costa, the European Council president, meanwhile continues to put pressure on leaders to agree to new ‘own resources’, EU-wide taxes funding the budget, while criss-crossing Europe on his annual Tour des Capitales.
The Portuguese politician is framing consensus on the proposed levies – projected to raise around €66 billion annually for the EU – as a prerequisite for the deal he says must be reached by 2027 for the money to start flowing a year later.
