TAE: We have better proposals for European Corona aid!

Taxpayers Association of Europe (TAE) criticises European Reconstruction Fund

We, the Taxpayers Association of Europe (TAE), are very sceptical towards the German-French proposals for mutual Corona aids in the form of a 500 billion Euro European Reconstruction Fund. The most important reasons:

• First of all, the EU member states have already decided upon an emergency aid programme with a total budget 540 billion Euro, of which not a single Euro has been paid out. “These funds should be used up first before more taxpayers money is put on display,” TAE president, Rolf von Hohenhau points out.
• Also, these reconstruction fund plans force the EU budget into long-term debt, which is prohibited by European law.

Conclusion and proposed solution:

The European Association rejects a debt funded financing of Corona aid, especially since apparently a large portion of the aid is to be granted as non-repayable subsidies to crisis states. We therefore urge the EU Commission to soon present better plans and financing proposals for the European Reconstruction Fund. For this purpose we would like to point out that states like Spain and Italy can also be aided in a more focused way by a clear and fixed-term weighting of various EU funding pools within the frame work of standard financing of the EU budget.

The line of thought and suggestions by the Taxpayers Association of Europe (TAE) are worth a look, especially as to how one could act from the viewpoint of the taxpayer in order to help swiftly and sustainably, and lessen the effects of the Corona crisis without the taxpayers having to foot the bill.

Download Link:
https://www.taxpayers-europe.org/images/pdf/TAE_EU_Expenditure_to_deal_with_the_Corona_economic_crisis_July_31_2020_EN.pdf