Parliament wins bigger EU budget

MEPs have approved a new EU budget for 2007 that increases the amount set aside for key priorities such as research and development.

James Elles, the UK centre-right MEP who guided the report through parliament, said he was pleased with the result.

“Throughout the 2007 budget procedure, parliament has consistently highlighted the need for the EU to respond more effectively to the challenges and opportunities of globalisation,” he said.

“Following the negotiations on the EU’s budget for 2007-13, we are short of money in some parts of the budget, even those areas that parliament, commission and member states would like to prioritise.”

“That is why we have evolved a two-pronged approach – the prioritisation of projects and an evolving concept of proper budget implementation.”

“We cannot have proper management of the EU if we keep throwing good money after bad, so we have introduced some changes to the way the money is allocated and we will be following up on that.”

After lengthy, and sometimes acrimonious, discussions with national governments and the European commission, the EU’s budget for 2007 was finally set at €126.5bn in commitments – money pledged by member states for expenditure over one or more years.

Payments– the amount that member states agree to pay to meet these commitments – were set at €115.5bn, well beneath the maximum level agreed with member states but still 7.6 per cent higher than the previous year.

Elles said that parliament had insisted more than anything else on ensuring that EU citizens got better value-for-money through the targeting of money on specific areas.

“Innovative initiatives have been proposed to boost business and scientific exchanges with China and India,” he said.

“Similar projects for Japan have existed for some time: why should the EU hold back regarding these emerging economic power-houses?”

He added that the value-for-money approach was exemplified by the fact that for the first time since 2000, no request was made for the use of so-called ‘flexibility instruments’, setting aside a reserve of cash for spending beyond agreed levels.

Elles said that parliament had also won its battle with member states over staff cuts at the commission.

“We didn’t see a savage cut in staff posts as the way to deal with reducing the institutional budget,” he said.

But he stressed that a final decision on commission staffing requirements would be taken after a review due to be published on April 30 2007.

The administrative costs of the EU institutions will be €6.9bn in 2007, 5.5 per cent of total commitments.
 
Dalia Grybauskaite, EU budget commissioner, said that she was “very happy that the whole package of financial initiatives are ready for January 2007” and that the new budget would be “simpler, less bureaucratic and more transparent”.

She also welcomed the increase in money available for new member states – including Romania and Bulgaria who will join in two weeks – commenting that 44 per cent of the budget would be dedicated to the countries that joined the EU since 2004.

Louis Grech MEP, the Maltese centre-left MEP who was co-rapporteur with Elles, stressed that the spending agreements had become “more and more activity based”, meaning that there was less need for reserves of cash to be kept aside for unspecified purposes.
 
More than €5.5bn will be spent on research, €1bn on energy and transport networks, €0.9bn on education and training, and money for innovation will increase by 53.6 per cent to €0.4bn in 2007.

Nearly €45.5bn will be available for the EU’s less prosperous regions to complement their efforts to reduce development disparities within EU regions, Grybauskaite said.

Money for the common agricultural policy, the biggest single budget heading, remains roughly the same at €42.7bn in commitments.

But there will also be a 3 per cent increase in the amount dedicated to rural development – including funding for farmers wishing to move into different sectors of the rural economy such as tourism or biofuel production – to €12.4bn.

Total commitments for freedom, security and justice issues will be €1.2bn, while money to help the EU’s neighbours and other developing economies will be set at €6.8bn.

• Previous article
• Next article