DUBLIN — Brussels needs new taxes to avert major cuts to its next seven-year budget, Ireland’s Prime Minister Micheál Martin said Thursday. The Irish leader met with European Council President António Costa at his country residence in Dublin to discuss negotiations and pave the way for signing a deal on the Multiannual Financial Framework, the bloc's seven-year budget, by an informal end-of-year deadline. But the Taoiseach added that an agreement on new levies, also referred to as own resources, would be “very complicated,” highlighting tensions in the negotiations.
The European Commission put forward five new taxes in 2025, expected to raise €60 billion per year. But the proposal was met with resistance by national governments, reluctant to back new levies that would overwhelmingly affect their domestic industries. Ireland, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU and is steering the budget talks, will announce a new negotiating document, or negobox, with revised figures in the coming weeks.
"When we meet all the various Member States, they have ambitions, they have asks, they have requests, and ... we cannot satisfy those requests if there's not a sufficiency of new own resources," Martin added, setting the tone for the next European leaders’ meeting on Oct. 15, where Costa aims to nail down several own resources that have strong backing among EU countries.
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