By Bruno Waterfield - 4th April 2006
MEPs have secured political trade-offs and an extra €4bn in cash to reach agreement on a seven-year EU financing package for 2007 to 2013.
The European parliament had threatened a return to annual spending rounds unless national governments agreed to spend more and to make reforms to budgetary procedure.
Many MEPs were angered after a December EU summit – European Council – agreed cuts to cash for youth, education, research and external policy.
“Our negotiating team has reached agreement,” parliament president Josep Borrell told MEPs.
“The ceiling has been raised by €4bn, that is fresh money, which will be added to certain programmes that have been very severely cut such as Erasmus, life-long learning, innovation and assistance to small businesses.”
Parliament’s lead negotiator Reimer Böge “candidly” stressed that the new financing package was far from perfect.
But he argued the new budget represented hard earned improvements and the best deal available.
“Under current circumstances all those in the negotiations reached the limits of what was acceptable to find a multi-annual and inter-institutional agreement.”
“We really did our utmost,” he told colleagues.
Key for Böge and other negotiators were political calculations to ensure reforms and parliamentary oversight to future financing.
“The parliament was not just obsessed with the figures," the German centre-right MEP said.
"We were worried about qualitative aspects, about reform, about finding new financial instruments, about cutting red tape, about guaranteeing the right of the parliament for foreign policy instruments as a review between 2008 and 2009.”
“We managed to get on board the qualitative aspects in a way that was more or less satisfactory. We managed to make progress towards a better European budgetary policy.”
On expenditure, Böge insisted that the increases represented a minimalist budget and the lowest acceptable threshold.
“We really did reach the pain threshold, if you look at things like life-long learning or competitiveness,” he told colleagues.
“That addition money means 40,000 students more can participate in exchanges. In that regard we have delivered on our commitment to European added value.
The European parliament has secured a €2bn cash injection of new money for the seven year period.
Another €1.9bn has been freed up from within budget under-spend and reserves for emergency and administrative expenditure.
Total EU expenditure for 2007 to 2013 will now be set at €866.3bn – well below the €1025bn tabled by the European commission on February 10 2004.
The deal between EU presidency, European commission and MEPs should be the final hurdle for long and acrimonious haggling.
MEPs will seek to allocate the extra cash to youth and education programmes such as Erasmus, EU foreign policy spending will also see a boost to budgets.
Key to a deal have been concessions from national governments on expenditure accountability and agreement to give parliament a role in a 2009 financing review.
A vote finally sealing the EU’s ‘financial perspective’ will take place at a Brussels gathering of the parliament on April 27.
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