Orbán calls EU net contributors’ 1 pc offer ‘unacceptable’

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has called it “unacceptable” that four EU member states – Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden – rejected European Council President Charles Michel’s proposal for each member contributing 1.074 percent of their gross national income (GNI) to the EU budget running from 2021 to 2027, and insisted that their contribution cannot top 1 percent of their economic output.

“If we wish to see an ambitious Europe, we need an ambitious budget,” Orbán told reporters during an EU summit in Brussels on Friday.

The prime minister told reporters that the Friends of Cohesion group of countries had decided to rename itself so as to reflect its advocacy for a budget of an ambitious Europe.

The countries concerned suggest that the calculations should be based on the European Parliament’s proposal for each member state contributing 1.3 percent of their GNI to the EU budget, he said

Orbán said he saw no hope for a compromise between the two positions. “If there is no agreement on the revenue side, it makes no sense to speak about distribution,” he said.

“We are very far from the realistic possibility to make a deal,” Orbán said, citing the wide gap between the two positions. It is “very likely” that another summit would be needed to reach an agreement.

Orbán said that the practice of richer countries contributing a lower share of their GNI to the EU budget than the poorer ones should be discontinued.