The EU’s 27 ambassadors will react to the negobox during a meeting on Sunday, where they will also prepare the leaders’ discussion on Thursday.
Governments are racing to agree on a budget deal among themselves by the end of the year, before elections in France, Poland and Italy threaten to disrupt the negotiations.
Tax tweaks
The Irish presidency made no major changes to a package of five new EU-wide taxes, or own resources, that were proposed by the Commission last year to generate a total of €66 billion for the budget.
This comes as a disappointment for countries such as France, which had been pressuring Dublin to add the European Parliament’s proposed levies on digital giants, online gambling and crypto firms to the negobox to increase the potential revenue.
Some of the Commission’s ideas — including a corporate tax, known as CORE, and a levy on polluting firms (ETS) — have been challenged by EU governments for more than a year of negotiations and are seen as unlikely to come to fruition.
Despite pressure to drop the most criticized options, Ireland has kept the five taxes on the table and merely suggested technical changes to overcome opposition.
It suggested phasing in ETS contributions for poorer countries that are overwhelmingly hit by the tax, and increasing EU budget contributions from a levy on carbon imports that is accepted by most governments.
Tensions on own resources will come to a head during Thursday’s leaders’ discussions. The president of the European Council, António Costa, said he intends to “fix” a package of potential taxes that are acceptable to governments during that meeting.