German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday welcomed for Berlin talks the leaders of three fellow “frugal” EU members — Austria, Denmark and Finland.<\/p>\n
Their meeting comes as the 27-member European Union braces for tough negotiations to agree a joint budget for the seven-year stretch 2028-34.<\/p>\n
Merz has demanded the European Commission slash its nearly two trillion euro ($2.3 trillion) budget proposal by hundreds of billions, calling the plan “unaffordable”.<\/p>\n
To hammer out a joint position, he will hold talks with Austria’s Chancellor Christian Stocker and prime ministers Mette Frederiksen of Denmark and Petteri Orpo of Finland.<\/p>\n
The EU’s “frugal” members — which also include the Netherlands and Sweden — tend to demand tighter spending discipline, traditionally putting them at odds with countries including Italy,\u00a0Spain\u00a0and Poland which support a bigger budget.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
European Council chief Antonio Costa kicked off a tour of EU capitals this week bidding to hammer out a compromise on the budget — with the clock ticking down to a December deadline.<\/p>\n
The EU wants a budget agreed before 2027, when elections in several member states — including key power France, where the far right is riding high — could complicate any grand bargain.<\/p>\n
The arm-wrestling will kick off in earnest at a Brussels summit in October, with a likely second meeting in November, before a grand finale in December when leaders will look to seal the deal.<\/p>\n
Merz already called on the EU executive to reduce its initial budget plan, speaking in Dublin late last month alongside Micheal Martin, prime minister of current EU presidency Ireland.<\/p>\n
“We need a budget proposal with cuts in all areas adding up to several hundred billion euros,” Merz said then. “We cannot afford exorbitant increases in spending” at a time budgets are being consolidated at a national level.<\/p>\n
Merz also said it was “unacceptable” to add 2,500 new jobs at EU institutions and urged a “thoroughgoing reduction in bureaucracy”.<\/p>\n
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