Key MEP threatens to block EU budget without more transparency

The European Parliament could block the EU’s trillion-euro budget proposal if its beneficiaries remain shrouded in secrecy, a key lawmaker said on Tuesday. 

The comments from Monika Hohlmeier (Germany/European People’s Party) come after criticism that funds released under the EU’s pandemic-era Recovery and Resilience Facility aren’t transparent or traceable. 

“We will block the multi-annual financial framework if there are no better definitions of final beneficiary,” Hohlmeier, vice-chair of the Parliament’s Budget Committee, told an online conference, referring to a reform to the EU’s seven-year, €1.2tn budget which the European Commission is set to propose next year.

“If you spend it, make it public … why do we hide €750 billion?” she asked, referring to the total value of Brussels’ stimulus plan.  

While national websites often set out how member states are allocating recovery funds, in some cases they only name intermediaries such as the agriculture ministry, rather than the beneficiaries of individual projects, EU Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly told the same event.  

“Citizens have a right to have decisions taken as closely to them as possible, a right to take part in the life of the Union,” O’Reilly said – rights that can’t be exercised if they don’t know what’s going on.  

The comments come after media revelations of a radical new plan for the EU’s budget, which could see hundreds of separate EU funds swept into a single pot.

The leak caused “nearly a kind of explosion in the parliament,” Hohlmeier said, adding: “The parliament already announced that we won’t accept it like this … we were quite fed up with this kind of mechanism.” 

The European Commission’s draft proposals, seen by Euronews, suggests sweeping away 530 programmes under the bloc’s current seven-year financial framework in favour of a single plan for each member state, including conditions to ensure respect for EU financial interests and the rule of law.

Multiple pots dedicated to innovation, space, health or the single market could merge into a single competitiveness fund, tied to policy goals and within which money can be reallocated more easily, the document said.

That plan has already generated controversy – and the EU’s Court of Auditors has also criticised the post-pandemic model of recovery funds for having vague milestones and making it hard to trace funds.  

“I’m in favour of efficiency, not having hundreds of programmes … whether one pot is the way forward, I’m not convinced,” the Court’s President Tony Murphy told reporters last week.