“We are ready to ask the Commission to withdraw its current proposal and make a new and better one reflecting our concerns,” the Socialists and Democrats said in a statement to POLITICO.
“We have made our decision on what we are ready to do with this proposal,” the statement said.
Both major parties want von der Leyen to ditch a plan to lump agricultural funds and regional payments ― which make up more than half of the budget ― into a single cash pot handled by national governments.
They complain this is a smokescreen to cut funding to farmers, who are core backers of the EPP ― although the Commission rejects this view.
It is particularly worrying for von der Leyen that her own EPP party is pushing the idea of binning the proposal — a position confirmed by three lawmakers and one aide working on the budget file.
“[The budget proposal] is first of all a problem when it comes to the internal market because we think that this would lead to a fragmentation of the agricultural market inside the EU,” the EPP’s spokesperson Daniel Köster told reporters on Friday.