Mr. Valdis Dombrovskis:

With regard to EU funding the current period of 2014-2020 is decided and we are past the mid-term review. The discussions are starting around the next planning period post 2020. We expect complicated discussions because Brexit will, once again, leave a hole in our EU budget. The UK is one of the largest net contributors to the EU budget. We will need to address this hole in the budget and there are only two ways to do this is; either through more contributions to the EU budget by member states or by developing or strengthening our current own resources system, thereby reducing expenditure. Already we are hearing very different signals from different member states. Not surprisingly they are coming down more or less along the lines of net payers and net contributors. We will, however, need to balance this. First we will need to address this shortfall from Brexit and we will also need to find fiscal space for new priorities.