“No area can be exempt,” an official in Berlin said ahead of the visit, arguing that net contributor states – those who put more into the Brussels coffers than they get out – already finance roughly three quarters of the EU budget.
Calling for cuts all over the place, just shows that you have no idea where you can actually save money specifically. Obviously an organization as large as the EU has some waste, but if he actually knew his stuff, then he would make specific proposals. This is just dumb.
There are areas, where giving the EU more money would be a good idea. The military comes to mind.
He doesn’t need to save money in the first place. His government took on a historic amount of debt to invest in infrastructure and economy to get revenues up… then wasted it all on tax cuts and subsidies for their rich buddies instead to then cry about the need to demolish social systems to save money.
Yes he does. Namely by not wasting it on his rich buddies.
Corpo whore
He really is a local politician from Sauerland disguised as chancelor.
“No area can be exempt,”
Except arms, right?
The article has an interesting passage about how Irish aluminium is currently being sold to Russia for weapons, and the EU is (rightly) trying to stop this.
The European Commission’s proposed 60% increase in spending, Merz argued, was simply unaffordable and “impossible to justify at a time when virtually all member states are making enormous efforts to consolidate their public finances”.
I hate to agree with Merz, but what he really says is not that there should be cuts, but rather that the hugely increased new budget proposal is not in line with the current economic situation and should be revised to something more similar in size to the current budget.
Yeah, that debate was basically settled already in 1936ff by Keynes
Kind of a telltale sign that conservatives still don’t get the message almost 100 years later.
Cutting spending by government will cool down the economy even more.
Someone’s spending is another one’s income.
Who else is supposed to spend if companies are downsizing, private households are cutting spending, and government is cutting spending?
I feel like the world collectively forgot Keynes‘ economics theory. The whole austerity cycle is madness.
I feel like the world collectively forgot Keynes‘ economics theory.
Neoliberalism has been the name of the game since the 80s.
Politicians have no idea about economics and their advisors are sponsored by corporation that prioritize short term shareholder value above all else.It’s more efficient if the member states invest then when the funds get stuck in the bureaucracy of the EU Commission.
He’s right, eventually the budget will need to be financed differently than it is today. France also isn’t financed by its regions’ contributions, same goes for Poland and Germany.
Merz isn’t calling for the EU to have the right to directly tax its citizens.
He’s certainly pushing the EU to find other sources of income! I hope it works
No, he’s saying that the EU budget should be lowered, and that poorer EU nations should contribute a larger share of the budget.
