{"id":638599,"date":"2025-12-17T17:58:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T17:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/638599\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T17:58:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T17:58:15","slug":"without-mercosur-berlin-cant-pay-more-into-eu-coffers-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/638599\/","title":{"rendered":"Without Mercosur, Berlin can\u2019t pay more into EU coffers \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cNow Europe must decide: Does it want to put the German economy back on the path to growth and thus support and grow the largest net contributor to the European coffers?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Chancellor Friedrich Merz, speaking in the German Bundestag ahead of an EU summit, exhibited frustration over persisting disagreements that are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/meloni-signing-mercosur-deal-now-would-be-premature\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">holding up the Mercosur trade agreement<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The agreement, in the works for over 25 years, is within sight of the finish line, but France and Italy are calling for a delay to finalize additional safeguards to protect European farmers from heightened South American competition.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/eu-perilous-path-mercosur-trade-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Only if they come round<\/a>\u00a0will European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen be able to fly to Brazil on Saturday, the day after the EU summit, to sign the deal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe European Union\u2019s ability to act is also measured by whether, after 26 years of negotiations, we are finally in a position to conclude this trade agreement and thus also to swiftly move forward with the trade agreements negotiated in Mexico and Indonesia,\u201d Merz said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf in the situation we find ourselves in today, in the times we live in today, we are still haggling over the details of major trade agreements that we as Europeans want to conclude with large economic areas around the world, then those who are doing so still do not properly understand the priorities we are setting now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asked about M\u00fcller\u2019s comments, the chancellor&#8217;s spokesperson, Stefan Kornelius, said: \u201cThe government\u2019s policy is to implement Mercosur. The budget is a different matter. A budget only works if we have growth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Germany contributes around \u20ac47 billion to the EU budget annually, corresponding to around 23.6 percent of its funding and over 1 percent of Germany\u2019s gross domestic product. If Germany maintains roughly its current share of the budget, its annual contribution would rise to around \u20ac67.3 billion in the next fiscal cycle.<\/p>\n<p>Hans von der Burchard contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cNow Europe must decide: Does it want to put the German economy back on the path to growth&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2106,1194,1442,2000,12921,85516,299,5187,1699,1214,6644,36,1945,1824,2199,22708,809,196741,1201,6862,1220],"class_list":{"0":"post-638599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-brazil","9":"tag-budget","10":"tag-competition","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-eu-budget","13":"tag-eu-summit","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-european","16":"tag-european-union","17":"tag-exports","18":"tag-farmers","19":"tag-france","20":"tag-friedrich-merz","21":"tag-germany","22":"tag-italy","23":"tag-mercosur","24":"tag-negotiations","25":"tag-sepp-muller","26":"tag-trade","27":"tag-trade-agreements","28":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115736211711013089","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}