Grand tour

Touring the capitals of Europe sounds like an unbeatable way to spend three weeks, the stuff of travel dreams, a bucket-list experience - but not if you’re António Costa. Since beginning in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava on 25 August, the Portuguese President of the European Council has been on his annual “Tour des Capitales”, engaged in what is surely one of the hardest tasks in politics: trying to secure consensus from the leaders of 27 countries over the bloc’s next seven-year budget.

This week, Costa travelled to several of the EU’s biggest economic players. On Wednesday, he visited Warsaw (Donald Tusk) and Berlin (Friedrich Merz); yesterday, he met with Pedro Sánchez in Madrid and the Portuguese prime minister Luís Montenegro in Lisbon; and today he rounds up an exhausting few days in Helsinki, with Finland’s prime minister Petteri Orpo. One suspects Costa hasn’t had much time for cultural immersion - relaxing in a Finnish sauna, say, or catching a flamenco show in Madrid.

The EU’s next Multiannual Financial Framework, as the bloc’s seven-year budgets are called, will cover the period 2028-35. There are several reasons why it’s shaping up to be one of the most contentious ever.

First, there is no agreement on how much should be allocated. The EU Commission is pushing for a collective pot of around two trillion euros, an amount which Germany says is a “fantasy”. Second, there is widespread disagreement on how much should be spent on defence. Third, countries are split over whether to delay repayment of the international bonds that funded the NextGenEU scheme, and whether mutual debt programmes should become a permanent fixture of EU financing. Fourth and finally, there is pressure to wrap up negotiations by the end of this year, before eight member states (including Spain) gear up for general elections in 2027.

Taxes are another contentious issue. Costa’s meetings in Berlin, Warsaw, Madrid and Lisbon probably included discussion of a “solidarity” tax on Europe’s gas and oil companies, similar to that imposed by Brussels in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The idea was recommended by the finance ministers of Spain, Poland, Portugal, Austria, Germany and Italy last month, but so far the EU has resisted reintroducing a blanket levy on energy firms.

A Grand Tour of Europe, usually focused on France and Italy, was once a rite of passage for young men (and later women) of the British aristocracy. Often taking several years, they were regarded as the finishing touch to a gentleman’s education, in which the pampered tourists learned about the politics and culture of other nations. Costa’s tour of EU capitals might lack a cultural element, but it will have taught him a lot about the bloc’s political and economic concerns.