Last Thursday 26th September, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium held a new lunch-debate in the framework of its ‘Business Circle’ forum, in which the Director General for Budget of the European Commission, Stéphanie Riso, spoke about ‘The new EU multiannual budget: an opportunity to enhance Europe’s competitiveness and enabling the green transition’.

After the welcome cocktail, the President of the Chamber, Pablo López-Álvarez, opened the lunch giving way to Eva Chamizo, Director of European Affairs of Iberdrola, sponsor of the event.

In her brief speech, Chamizo contextualised the organisation of the luncheon-debate from the interest in knowing in more detail what the public investment forecasts of the European institutions are for the coming years.

Riso then took the floor and began her speech by stressing the importance of the current situation, in which the new College of Commissioners is beginning to set budgetary priorities. ‘In order to look to the future, it is also crucial to look back and reflect on what has happened over the last four years,’ she said.

Flexibility and adaptation

In 2020, with the covid pandemic, the EU transformed its budget into a ‘crisis response tool’, in the words of the rapporteur, which has conditioned the rest of the mandate, but also provided an opportunity to transform the way in which European funds are used: ‘The way we spend is different from how it was before’.

This change has also allowed for swift action in the face of the geopolitical crisis in Ukraine and the EU has mobilised more than €90 billion in support for the country. In this new geo-economic landscape, the question is how the EU budget should change.

To this end, Riso posed several key questions, which the institutions want to answer with the collaboration of the business community: ‘What should be the purpose of the budget? How can we improve competitiveness?’ Continuing with the argumentation, the speaker asked the business world to be specific when putting forward their proposals for improvement.

At the end of the presentation, there was an extensive round of questions in which issues such as the defence budget and budgetary cohesion policies between regions and countries of the Union were raised.