By Bruno Waterfield - 4th April 2004
Brussels budget forecasts may not match EU ambitions to fight crime and terrorism, Europe’s spending chief warned on Monday.
Budget commissioner Michaele Schreyer is fighting a battle with penny pinching national governments keen to claw back on projected EU spending.
Commissioners spent Saturday at a meeting of Europe’s finance ministers trying to hold the line on a planned EU budget boost of €28 billion between 2007 and 2013.
Schreyer defends the need to increase spending as Europe enlarges to take in ten poorer mainly East European countries – and to fund a raft of anti-terror laws agreed by EU leaders after the March 11 Madrid bombings.
She stresses that moves to double the EU justice budget by 2013 will see European spending on crime fighting cooperation rise to only a euro per person in an enlarged Europe.
At an average of €500 million a year, after seven years, cash must stretch to cover increased policing of the EU’s 450 million citizens and security for a enlarged Europe’s 6000km land and 85,000km sea borders.
And putting futher strain on resources, Schreyer’s projected figures do not include the raft of new anti-terror measures agreed at an EU summit on March 25
“I think it is clear it is a very small budget and not big enough to fit the very ambitious agenda set out [by national governments], over the last month in particular,” Schreyer said.
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