The new European Union seven-year budget plan tabled by EU President Herman van Rompuy is favorable for Estonia, it appears from materials leaked to journalists in Brussels early on Friday morning.
New Van Rompuy proposal is favorable for Estonia
8th February 2013, 13:04
Please note that the article is more than five years old and belongs to our archive. We do not update the content of the archives, so it may be necessary to consult newer sources.
The ceiling on cohesion policy funding, the largest of Estonia's three priorities in the budget negotiations, has been left on the previous level. It means that an exception applies to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Hungary entitling them to structural fund payments equaling up to 2.59 percent of their gross national product (GNP). For the other eligible member states the payments would be capped at 2.35 percent of GNP.
In agricultural payments the budget blueprint sets a goal that by 2020 direct payments to all farmers would total at least 196 euros per hectare in current prices. Gradual leveling out of the payments would start only from 2015, however.
At the same time the requirement is maintained that in the case of countries whose direct agricultural payments equal less than 90 percent of the EU average direct payments must approach the level of 90 percent by at least one third.
While the size of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) has been reduced, the part of it earmarked for transport projects remains unchanged at 23.174 billion euros, which is seen as enabling to start the construction of the Rail Baltic rail link. Energy link projects would get 5.126 billion euros and telecommunications one billion euros from CEF under the proposal.
Van Rompuy presented the new budget draft early on Friday morning, after more than 12 hours of talks between EU leaders. The total size of the budget would be 960 billion euros and the total size of payouts 908.4 billion euros.
The agreement is expected to be finalized later on Friday.