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EU needs ‘good budget’ to be global player: Polish PM

18.02.2020 07:35
Poland’s prime minister has said he wants Europe to be a “global player,” adding that for this the EU needs a “good budget.”
PM Mateusz Morawiecki
PM Mateusz Morawiecki Photo: PAP/Paweł Supernak

In a special article for Tuesday’s edition of German daily Die Welt, Mateusz Morawiecki called for a budget that would help the EU become, among other things, a world leader in the field of new technologies.

His comments came ahead of a special European Council meeting of the EU’s 27 member states in Brussels on Thursday to discuss the bloc’s next seven-year budget, known as the multiannual financial framework.

Morawiecki recently said that the European Commission's proposal on the bloc’s new budget for 2021-2027 was “insufficient” and “not ambitious enough,” the PAP news agency has reported.

Writing in Tuesday’s Die Welt, Morawiecki said: “The European Union is at a turning point in history. Brexit, as well as the negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework, are an opportunity not to veer off onto the sidelines of history, but to build a Union that will not only take part in the race for a better and fairer future, but will also have a chance to win this race.”

He added: “We want Europe as a global player."

Morawiecki argued that a fair EU budget would benefit both richer northern European member states and poorer members in the south.

Poland and 16 other European Union members strongly oppose plans to restrict the bloc’s cohesion and agricultural policies, Morawiecki said earlier this month.

The EU’s cohesion policy aims to support development in poorer member states and help equalise standards of living across the bloc.


(pk)

Source: PAP