Research project | Updated 26/07/2010 

With the publication, in 2005, of an influential paper written by Jacques Le Cacheux (European Budget: The Poisonous Budget Rebate), Notre Europe made a significant contribution to the ongoing debates on the reform of the EU budget, by criticising the dominance of short-sighted national interests on EU budgetary negotiations. The announcement of a comprehensive review on the EU budget, to be held in 2008/2009, has given Notre Europe the opportunity to further its advocacy and research tasks on this area.

It is against this background that Notre Europe has launched a research and advocacy project on the reform of the EU budget. The aim is two-fold:

• To provide concrete proposals of spending re-allocation for the next financial perspectives;
• To help shift the terms of the debate for subsequent budgetary negotiations, by stimulating discussion and reflection on the functions and structure of the EU budget and on the principles or criteria that should guide EU spending choices.

At a more general level, the project will serve to promote. Notre Europe's thinking with respect to the reform of the EU budget, in line with Notre Europe's ambitious vision for Europe.

Notre Europe's thinking on the reform of the European budget

Notre Europe views the European budget as a key instrument to achieve EU goals as well as an essential element to help advance the process of European integration. It welcomes reform, which should be:

• Ambitious in goals. The reform of the EU budget should not be narrowly focused on redressing spending allocation for the next financial perspectives. The goal should be to secure a well-functioning EU budget for the coming decades. In this respect, a broad perspective is required, allowing also a fundamental reasoning beyond what appears to be politically feasible in the short-term.
• Comprehensive in scope. A far-reaching reform of EU finances requires tackling simultaneously all the elements of the budgetary system-expenditures, revenues and procedures. This is because the most important problems affecting the EU budgetary system have multiple causes and thus require interventions in different sub-fields. Historically, the most important reforms of the EU budgetary system have always been global in scope, and there are grounds to believe that this is the most successful strategy to trigger a major change in EU finances.
• Guided by considerations of both efficiency and democratic legitimacy. One frequently hears that the present EU budget should be reformed in order to allocate resources better and use them more efficiently. While agreeing with this, Notre Europe considers that the reform of the European budget should also be guided by democratic legitimacy considerations. The legitimacy of a budgetary system derives from the degree of democratic control, that is, the extent to which resources are allocated according to citizens' will. At the EU level, this implies the need to increase the legitimacy of EU budgetary decisions, by making them more democratic and closer to citizens.