According to media reports, the EU would plan large-scale joint borrowing for energy and defense projects as a result of the war in Ukraine.
Basic Finns chairman Riikka Purra says that the party is, in principle, very negative about the EU’s possible joint borrowing as a result of the war in Ukraine.
“After all, Parliament has the statements in the report of the Finance Committee approved in connection with the discussion of the recovery package, which state unequivocally that Finland will not accept a similar package to increase the Commission’s borrowing again,” says Purra.
News agency Bloomberg said Tuesdaythat the EU plan large-scale joint borrowing for energy and defense projects following the war in Ukraine. The plan could be presented as early as this week when EU leaders meet in an emergency meeting.
In Finland The common debt taken by the EU in the midst of the interest rate crisis provoked much opposition. The so-called recovery package of EUR 750 billion is intended to finance, in particular, the green transition and digitalisation and to reform the EU economy in the wake of the pandemic.
The basic Finns strongly opposed the package.
Read more: What to do about the EU’s rising defense and energy spending? There are ideas for financing them with joint debt and counting them out of the debt rules
Bite emphasizes that he speaks only on the basis of media information.
According to him, it seems that the new proposals in the public domain would have much the same spirit as the so-called Social Fund, which has been presented as part of the EU’s Fit for 55 climate package. The purpose of the Social Fund is to prevent the price increase caused by the green transition from becoming too heavy a financial burden on low-income citizens.
Finland has been critical of the fund.
Read more: Finland’s Social Fund for Climate Action suspects Finland – Criticism from member states could also overturn road transport emissions trading
“As far as Italy and France in particular are pushing for such a new package, there are very many similar elements here as in the Social Social Fund, which has been talked about before,” says Purra.
“It is known that the price of energy in Italy has risen sharply even before this war in Ukraine, because Italy is dependent on gas. It is known that in France, too, these issues have been very acute even before the war in Ukraine. And these countries in particular have supported mechanisms such as the Climate Social Fund, in which income transfer packages could then offset these energy bills. ”
Basic Finns oppose similar proposals.
“By no means do we agree to pay the Italian and French gas bills.”
Purra believes that the necessary investments in, for example, energy projects and defense should be made primarily through national measures.
Prime minister Sanna Marin (sd) said earlier Wednesday also that Finland should take a critical or sharply negative view of possible proposals for large-scale joint borrowing by the EU. He also said that there was no Commission proposal on the matter, so no Finnish position had been formed on it.
“If I anticipated, we would be extremely critical of common procedures. If we were to talk about a package of grants like the Recovery Facility, we would be negative about that. Pretty soon we would try to knock out tools like this, ”Marin said.
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