01 March 2024

EURACTIV: NextGen 2.N0? Conservatives throw spanner into new EU joint borrowing debate

Conservative lawmakers in the European Parliament, such as Siegfried Mureşan, Vice Chair of centre-right EPP group, have declared their strong opposition to a renewed joint borrowing scheme at the EU level, making it unlikely that such a programme would ever see the light of day.

Centre-right and national-conservative groups in the European Parliament have voiced strong opposition to a renewed joint-debt programme at the EU level, after calls for a Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) ‘2.0’ mushroomed over the last few weeks to close a gap for public investments.

In 2021, the EU set out a hefty €723 billion funding programme to tackle member states’ needs to recover from the Covid-induced economic crisis and sustain their domestic-sector green and digital transition – within the ‘Next Generation EU’ plan.

Of that agreed capacity, €385 billion would be available to member states in the form of loans, which would have to be repaid by national governments – and €338 billion would be disbursed in the form of grants, meaning that debt repayments for these would be financed out of the EU budget.

With the final deadline for loan applications now passed (August 2023) and fund disbursement to be finalised by 2026, calls are on the rise to create a follow-up programme to ensure member states can continue to tap into vital resources: many national economies are still grappling with compressed growth and (presumably long-term) energy-transition hurdles.

However, conservative MEPs are starting to signal they would strongly oppose such proposals, making it less likely that such a programme would ever see the light of day – at least in the same shape or form.

The RRF was “designed as an exceptional, unique one-time instrument in a time of an unprecedented crisis”, Siegfried Mureşan, Vice Chair of centre-right EPP group in the European Parliament, told Euractiv.

“I know that the Socialists would always tell you that the solution is spending more of people’s money, but throwing money at problems does not always solve the problem,” he said, in reference to a statement made by Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, who hails from the Italian centre-left PD party (S&D). 

EURACTIV

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