Research project
| Updated 04/01/2012
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.
How to spend better together
The negotiations about the EU budget after 2013 can’t ignore austerity concerns but, due to its limited size, we cannot expect major savings from applying austerity at the EU-level.
A more intelligent response to the austerity challenge is to look at ways to make savings by better coordinating EU and national-level spending or by re-organising spending tasks. To explore these potentialities for efficiency gains, Notre Europe launches a set of publications under the title “How to spend better together”, which contains both transversal and sectoral analysis.
Each sectoral publication focuses on a specific policy area and is written by an expert on this policy area, which provides a different look to the question of “how to increase the added value of EU spending”. Some of them reject generally accepted ideas that circulate among EU budget debates. Others show us new ways to maximize the efficiency of public spending, which do not necessarily pass through changes in the EU budget. And, in general terms, they provide insightful analysis of the rationale and design of existing EU spending programs.
We hope that these publications will stimulate the debate on how to re-organize European public spending in different policy areas, and will provide a useful contribution to the discussions on the post 2013 EU financial perspectives.
Publications
Research, Higher Education and Innovation: Redesigning European Governance in an Period of Crisis, Policy paper by Jo Ritzen and Luc Soete, November 2011.
Financing Trans-European Energy Infrastructures – Past, Present, and Perspectives, Policy Paper by Christian Von Hirschhausen, November 2011.
The "added value" in EU budgetary debates: one concept, four meanings, Policy Brief by Eulalia Rubio, June 2011.
Thinking the EU budget and public spending in Europe: the need to use an aggregate approach, Policy Brief by Amélie Barbier-Gauchard, June 2011
Defence spending in Europe: Can we do better without spending more?, Policy paper by Fabio Liberti, June 2011
