By Bruno Waterfield - 21st September 2006
Next year’s Berlin declaration on the future of Europe will set the basis for a 2008 review of EU finances, Dalia Grybauskaite hinted on Thursday.
The European budget commissioner has signalled that the timetable and terms of a “no taboos” financing review will be set in the German EU presidency in 2007.
She indicates that policy declarations to mark the EU’s 50th birthday next year will set the shape for the full budget review in two to three years time.
“The review will depend on another political exercise with the German presidency on Europe’s institutional future,” she said.
“Europe’s budgets can not be taken out of this… on this it will very much depend how we go forward.”
A Berlin declaration to mark the March 25 1957 Treaty of Rome will commit EU leaders to political priorities and the European project.
The text will then become a blueprint for a future EU treaty, to replace the European constitution, in 2009 and set the policy framework for a new system to finance Europe.
Commission proposals will then emerge, built on the foundation of the policy declaration, at end of 2007 to kick off debate among EU governments and with the European parliament.
After the 2009 review, in 2011 a new financial framework and spending package will be proposed by the commission for discussion and agreement by EU leaders in 2012.
The commission hopes that discussion on the future of Europe will keep financing negotiations focused on policy objectives not percentages points.
“The review will be about politics and how the EU should be financed from the political point of view,” Grybauskaite said.
“If we start talking about percentages we accept that the amounts will not change, we will just be sharing out what is already on the table.”
“It is clear that questions of spending at the EU level are questions of policy.”
The Lithuainian cites 2005 budget spending as an indicator of what is wrong with Europe’s financing set-up.
To reflect the EU’s push to boost economic growth, Brussels managed to nudge research spending up six per cent.
But, as Grybauskaite notes, the total only adds up to around €4bn out of a total budget of €105bn – 41 per cent of which is spent on farm subsidies.
“The EU’s financing and budgets are not reflecting economic goals… To priorities, such as research, the EU budget currently devotes leftovers,” she said.
“The budget is a political signal and mirror. Does this mirror reflect our economic needs? I do not thinks so.”
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