MEPs back EU budget deal

MEPs have backed an EU financing package for 2007 to 2013 after two years of Brussels negotiations.

The European parliament said that the seven-year deal of €864bn was barely acceptable – the European commission’s original target of €1025bn was severely reduced by cash-strapped national capitals.

But they decided to back the budget proposal after parliament’s team of negotiators, led by German MEP Reimer Böge, negotiated an extra €4bn from the Austrian EU presidency.

The money will be spent on “key areas such as youth, education, culture, research, cross-border cooperation, health and consumer protection, and neighbourhood policies”, Böge said.

The commission only spends 20 per cent of EU funds, with the remainder managed by national governments, and parliament also secured greater financial accountability from European capitals.

The European court of auditors has been unable to endorse EU spending for the last 12 years because of concerns about fraud.

Böge also pushed successfully for greater involvement in the 2008 review of EU financing, including the review of the farm spending, the biggest budget heading.

“We now have more flexibility in budgetary procedure, we can react better and more quickly to disasters, we have strengthened budgetary rights, clearer obligations of the member states, better financial planning and better controls on the setting up of new agencies,” he said.
 
MEPs had also been concerned that the penny-pinching by EU leaders would lead to the gap between Europe’s richest and poorest nations widening even further.

But the new deal should ensure that key investments in new member states – which tend to be poorer than the 15 ‘old’ members – will be maintained.

And parliament also stressed the need for an overhaul of the so-called ‘own resources’ system – where member states haggle over how much they will contribute – to avoid a repeat of last December’s bad-tempered summit. 

EU budget commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite welcomed parliament’s backing for the agreement, which was passed by 440 votes to 190.

“The EU will have at its disposal the funds necessary to secure the development of an enlarged Europe and to guarantee that new member states will become full participants of all EU policies,” she said.

She added that parliament’s backing for the agreement meant the threat of a return to lengthy and fractious annual budget debates had been avoided.
 
The Lithuanian commissioner said that a new set of concrete proposals for the next EU budget would be presented next week, taking account of the changes agreed by parliament.

These proposals should be swiftly agreed by national governments keen to draw a line under the divisive budget issue.

“Today Europe moved in the right direction, towards progress and modernisation,” Grybauskaite said.

But not everyone was happy with the outcome. Green MEP Helga Trüpel said that the €4bn extra was not enough “to overcome the under-financing of the EU over the coming budgetary period”.

And she added that national governments had refused to put explicit references to a review of budget procedures in the agreement, “underlining their lack of commitment to a meaningful review”.

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