Polish PM, European Commissioner discuss EU budget

During their meeting in Warsaw, Morawiecki briefed Oettinger, the European commissioner for budget and human resources, on Poland’s key proposals for the bloc’s future budget, the Polish Prime Minister’s Office said.

The office said in a statement that Morawiecki “pointed out that Poland is in favour of an ambitious EU budget, one that will take into account the positive impacts of [the bloc’s] cohesion policy and Common Agricultural Policy.”

According to the Polish Prime Minister’s Office, Oettinger came to Poland as part of a series of consultations on the shape of the EU’s 2021-2027 budget, a tour during which he is visiting all member states.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive, is expected to unveil its post-2020 budget plans in early May.

Morawiecki said earlier this month that Poland as well as the Baltic states were “opting for increasing the [EU] budget, including from [our] own funds if this proves necessary."

Speaking in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, Morawiecki also said that the hole in the EU budget created by Britain’s upcoming departure from should be “patched up.”

Giving a press conference after talks with his counterparts from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Morawiecki told reporters that Poland, much as the three Baltics, “underlined the importance of maintaining the role” of agricultural policy and cohesion policy in the new EU budget.

In an earlier statement, ahead of an informal EU summit in Brussels in late February, Morawiecki said that the next long-term EU budget must be built on a “healthy compromise.”

(gs/pk)

Source: PAP, premier.gov.pl