Poland ready for 'healthy compromise' on post-2020 EU budget: PM
PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek
23.02.2018 14:49
The next long-term European Union budget must be built on “healthy compromise”, for which Poland is ready, the country's prime minister said on Friday ahead of an informal EU summit in Brussels.
Mateusz Morawiecki in Brussels. Photo: PAP/Marcin Obara
The meeting is expected to discuss the EU's post-2020 budget and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said it would kick off “huge negotiations”.
“Poland has very clearly defined goals,” Morawiecki said. They include maintaining the bloc's hitherto agriculture and cohesion policies, which have boosted Poland's investments.
Morawiecki added that he was also in favour of new goals, among them defence and migration policies and plans to support refugees in the Middle East and Africa, suggested by some European Union states.
But new goals would need new means, the Polish prime minister said, indicating that, in the future, rebates for member states could be cut to fund new initiatives.
Morawiecki also had other suggestions for boosting the budget. He pointed to Poland's crackdown on tax cheats.
The finance ministry said last year that new laws to crack down on tax cheats targeting the finance sector could see an extra PLN 32 billion flowing into state coffers over 10 years.
He also said the European Union had lost out EUR 155 billion in VAT receipts, “more than the entire annual EU budget”.
He added that Poland is against tax havens.
The European Commission is expected to present its post-2020 budget plans in May. (vb/pk)
Source: PAP