DUBLIN – No headings in the EU’s next long-term budget should be exempt from “essential” cuts was the uncompromising message from Friedrich Merz during the first visit to Ireland by a German chancellor since Angela Merkel.

Merz travelled to Dublin on Tuesday for talks with Ireland’s Prime Minister Micheál Martin dominated by EU negations on the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).

Ireland, as the holder of the rotating Council of the EU presidency, will play a key role in efforts to find a deal on the seven year spending plan before the end of this year. The debate is considered so strategically important for Berlin that it prompted the first visit by a German chancellor to Dublin in seven years.

Merz used the trip to reiterate Berlin’s demand for a fundamental overhaul of both the structure and priorities of the EU’s next spending cycle.

The European Commission’s proposed 60% increase in spending, Merz argued, was simply unaffordable and “impossible to justify at a time when virtually all member states are making enormous efforts to consolidate their public finances”.

Proposals should therefore be significantly reduced, Berlin briefed. The position in Germany is especially important as the country is the single biggest contributor to the EU budget. “These cuts are essential, ” said Merz.

“No area can be exempt,” an official in Berlin said ahead of the visit, arguing that net contributor states – those who put more into the Brussels coffers than they get out – already finance roughly three quarters of the EU budget.

The Irish Council presidency is expected to table a new so-called ‘nego box’, with new spending figures, in time for an EU summit in mid-October. German officials are sceptical that, if negotiations fail, current MFF spending levels can simply be rolled over.

“I trust that you, dear Micheál, will put forward a realistic proposal,” said the German leader.

How deep to cut

Merz declined to specify how deep the cuts should be but indicated that savings would have to amount to several hundred billion euros to produce an outcome compatible with Germany’s federal budget.

He also criticised the Commission’s plan to create 2,500 additional posts, arguing that such an expansion was difficult to justify while Berlin is cutting staffing levels across the federal administration by 8%.

Agricultural policy remained another unresolved issue, with Berlin continuing to reject proposals for a new corporate tax at EU level.

For Merz, the working visit also offered a welcome respite from domestic political turbulence. His cabinet reshuffle, coupled with the botched appointment of a successor to Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder, has caused frustration within the CDU.

Schnieder had already bid farewell to ministry staff before his designated successor unexpectedly withdrew, forcing him to remain in office until he resigned himself. Speaking in Dublin, Merz said he expected the discussions to be calmed at Wednesday’s parliamentary group meeting of his MPs.

On enlargement, another topic to be discussed by EU leaders in October, Merz maintained pressure for faster accession talks with Montenegro.

Given the country’s progress, he argued, it should not be grouped together with the rest of the Western Balkans and should instead join the EU before the end of the decade.

Another sensitive issue received little public attention during the visit. Ireland’s aluminium exports – 52% of which currently go to Russia – should, both sides agreed, be addressed in Brussels rather than in Dublin.

An investigation by The Irish Times recently revealed that alumina produced at the Aughinish refinery, Europe’s largest alumina plant, is shipped to Russia, where it is allegedly used in weapons production.

(bw, jp)