EU budget: What falls by how many percent?

HUNGARY - In Brief 02 May 2018 by Istvan Racz

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The EU Commission's proposal on the 2021-2027 EU budget is now out and official. But it is somewhat difficult to understand, as the EU's own communication is somewhat sketchy and still complicated (a course for them on presentation skills could be useful), and as many journalists are starting to feel like analysts, which is not always the best way to make people understand the facts.Anyway, it seems pretty clear that out of the next 7-year budget, the EU Commission wants to spend more on technological innovation and development, education, security, migration and border protection, external cooperation and economic aid, climate protection, etc., whereas it intends to spend less on cohesion policy, rural development and agricultural direct payments, at least in percent of GDP terms. This works very clearly against CEE members and Hungary among them.It is quite easy to lose one's way between current and constant price, UK-inclusive and exclusive data, so everything we are writing here in terms of figures should be taken as rather preliminary. But our first take is that Hungary's per-year allocation of development (cohesion and rural development) funds are heading down towards 2.2% of GDP in 2021-2027, from 2.9% in the current budget and 4.1% in 2007-2013. In addition, agricultural direct payments and market protection may fall to 0.7% of GDP per year, from 1% in the current budget and 0.8% in 2007-2013. Consequently, total allocations to Hungary would go down to 2.8% of GDP in the next budget, from 4% currently and 4.9% in 2007-2013. These are all gross figures, as Hungary's financial contribution to the EU budget is also significant, possibly rising to 0.8-0.9% of GDP f...