Notre Europe: Debate: A New Budget for the European Union?

Debate: A New Budget for the European Union?

| 12/06/2009

This article is the subject of a debate. See responses below. ▼

As we approach the end of the EU budgetary review, Notre Europe invites various prominent scholars and EU observers to discuss the EU budget reform proposal put forward by Alfonso Iozzo, Stefano Micossi and Maria Teresa Salvemini in a policy paper published by CEPS some time ago (A New budget for the European Union?, CEPS policy brief n. 159, May 2008).

In this paper, Iozzo, Micossi and Salvemini propose to break up the EU budget into three separate chapters, each one with a different function (redistribution, provision of public goods and investment of long-term pan-European projects) and financed through different means (through national contributions, an EU VAT tax and Eurobonds respectively). How feasible is a change to a three-pillar structure, as the authors propose? Would this help to move away from "net returns' discussions towards budgetary discussions based on EU interest and public good considerations? Are the modes of financing proposed - the correction mechanism for the first chapter, the VAT tax for the second one - the most appropriate ones? These and other questions are object of analysis and discussion by a variety of experts.

We launch the debate with the contributions of five experts plus that of Notre Europe. Other experts' contributions will be added in the coming weeks.

This document is made available under a Creative Commons license.

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Speakers’ corner

	Reaction to the policy paper "A new Budget for the European Union?" by A. Iozzo, S.Micossi and MT. Salvemini — by Jorge Nunez Ferrer The paper by Iozzo and Micossi and Salvemini is very interesting, and for such a limited amount of pages, one of the clearest papers I have read. It puts together the best ideas of a number of existing works (Sapir, 2003, Heinemann et al. 2008; De La Fuente, 2008), and then makes them more relevant and better targeted to the realities of the EU budget. It is based, nevertheless, on a very questionable redistributive and allocative "European public goods" budget items separation. This separation looks well argued, but partially collapses if one looks more closely at the actual use of the funds, in particular those of the Cohesion Policy. Speakers's Corner \| 19/10/2009
	Reaction to a policy paper published by CEPS "A New Budget for the European Union?" by A. Iozzo, S. Micossi and MT. Salvemini — by Daniel Tarschys Categorising public expenditures is a slippery undertaking. At closer inspection even such time-honoured distinctions as that between investments and consumption turns out to be very blurred. No sooner has "infrastructure" been proclaimed to be an overriding political priority than you have a long line of prospective candidates lining up. Speakers's Corner \| 18/08/2009
	Debate: A New Budget for the European Union? Some responses to the comments — by Stefano Micossi, Maria Teresa Salvemini The debate launched by Notre Europe on its website on our contribution to the discussion on the EU budget reform (CEPS Policy Brief n. 159 of May 2009, "A w budget for the European Union?") has elicited various reactions (Begg, Le Cacheux, Pietras, Santos, Zuleeg and Notre Europe itself). While the discussion continues, we feel that some remarks on our parts may be useful at this stage to clarify our views and dispel some possible misunderstanding. Speakers's Corner \| 21/07/2009
	Reaction to a policy paper published by CEPS "A New Budget for the European Union?" by A. Iozzo, S. Micossi and MT. Salvemini — by Steffen Osterloh The paper "A new budget for the European Union?" by Alfonso Iozzo, Stefano Micossi and Marai Teresa Salvemini is a very interesting contribution to the ongoing discussion about the reform of the EU budget. In particular, they leave the conventional track of just normatively discussing "a new budget" by numerating its desirable elements based on economic theory. Speakers's Corner \| 21/07/2009
	Reaction to a policy paper published by CEPS "A New Budget for the European Union?"by A. Iozzo, S. Micossi and MT. Salvemini — by Iain Begg While it is true that the juste retour mentality that has increasingly pervaded budget negotiations since the last major reform twenty years ago has many regrettable characteristics, it will never be easy to arrive at a package of EU spending that escapes this particular curse. The Iozzo, Micossi and Salvemini paper is, therefore, a welcome attempt to find a new approach. It is one of a number of recent contributions to the budget debate that has sought to distinguish more explicitly between the public good and distributive elements of the budget. Speakers's Corner \| 11/06/2009
	Reaction to a policy paper published by CEPS "A New Budget for the European Union?" by A. Iozzo, S. Micossi and MT. Salvemini — by Jacques Le Cacheux In their response to the Commission consultation on the budget review, summarized in the above mentioned CEPS Policy Brief, Alfonso Iozzo, Stefano Micossi and Maria Teresa Salvemini offer a diagnosis of the current weaknesses of the EU budget and propose a reform that they argue should improve the situation. Speakers's Corner \| 11/06/2009
	Reaction to a policy paper published by CEPS " A new Budget for the European Union?" by A. Iozzo, S. Micossi and MT. Salvemini — by Jaroslaw Pietras A diagnosis is the least controversial part of nearly every proposal of the reform of the EU finances. When it comes to define solutions opinions starts to differ. The excellent paper by Alfonso Iozzo, Stefanno Micosi and Maria Teresa Salvemini may serve as confirmation of this general rule. It does not devote much of the analysis to the deficiencies of the current financial system of the EU. It proposes changes to the EU budget which are very interesting and which offer a good basis to rethink the purpose of EU finances. Speakers's Corner \| 11/06/2009
	Reaction to a policy paper published by CEPS "A new Budget for the European Union?" by A. Iozzo, S. Micossi and MT. Salvemini — by Indhira Santos The authors' proposal relies on dividing up the EU budget expenditures in three categories - redistributive, EU public goods and capital expenditures - and having a differential funding structure for each expense class. In doing so, the authors try to link closer together the expenditure and revenue sides of the EU budget and reduce the detrimental effects of net balances on expenditure quality. Speakers's Corner \| 11/06/2009
	Reaction to a policy paper published by CEPS "A New Budget for the European Union?" by A. Iozzo, S. Micossi and MT. Salvemini — by Fabian Zuleeg The analysis of the issues highlights many salient issues, for example the increasing divergence between the budget and the policy priorities of the European Union or the need to move away from net balance discussions. Speakers's Corner \| 11/06/2009
	Reaction to a policy paper published by CEPS, "A New Budget for the European Union?" by A. Iozzo, S. Micossi and MT. Salvamini — by Notre Europe There is something of a paradox in what has happened with the debate on the EU budget reform: one year ago we were all intensively engaged in the production of proposals and ideas on how to reform the European budget. Now that the crisis has placed fiscal policy back into the public policy agenda, the interest in the EU budget has faded away. Speakers's Corner \| 11/06/2009

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Notre Europe is an independent think tank devoted to European integration. Under the guidance of Jacques Delors, who created Notre Europe in 1996, the association aims to « think a united Europe. » Our ambition is to contribute to the current public debate by producing analyses and pertinent policy proposals that strive for a closer union of the peoples of Europe. We are equally devoted to promoting the active engagement of citizens and civil society in the process of community construction and the creation of a European public space.