When Herman Van Rompuy comes to the European Parliament on Monday he will have some explaining to do.
The president of the European Council greeted the conclusion of the recent budget negotiations between heads of government with a celebratory tweet that a deal had been reached, one worth the all-night haggling. But the result left many, including me, distinctly underwhelmed.
First, the proposals represent the most backward-looking Multiannual Financial Framework, or MFF – the jargon for the EU’s seven-year budget packages – in the history of the union. Second, the agreement reached in the early hours of the morning in Brussels is in fact just the start of a negotiation phase with the parliament – not a final deal in itself. And third, the proposal does not provide the EU with a budget fit for a globalised world. Payments over the period to 2020 would in effect be frozen at roughly the level of the 2011 budget.