EU budget commissioner Guenther Oettinger warned Italy on Tuesday (28 August) that if it blocked EU negotiations on the union’s next long-term budget, it risked losing extra funding for migration.
Asked about comments by Italy’s deputy prime minister Luigi Di Maio on Monday, who had threatened to veto the EU’s seven-year budget plan if the bloc did not do more to share the burden of migrant arrivals, Oettinger said that if the negotiations were blocked, the entire budget plan would be held up.