There once was a little boat...
Notre Europe's viewpoint
| 30/08/2006
As in the nursery rhyme, the negociations on the 2007-2013 EU budget are struggling to make progress. The new Member states, which have just joined the ship, thought that the EU boat would take them to distant and brighter places. This is what the constitutional roadmap had suggested. Alas, having just boarded the community ship, they discovered that it has been stranded by two referendums and the pettiness of their shipmates.
Since the disastrous letter to the Commission by the EU's six richest states in December 2003 calling for the capping of the future budget at 1% of the EU's gross national product from 2007 onwards, the EU 25 seemed to have focused on finding the weakest shipmates to reduce their share. First it was Spain because of the cohesion fund. Then it was France because of the Common Agricultural Policy. Then the UK for its rebate. And now the new members because of structural funds. Not to mention collateral victims such as interregional cooperation, rural development, and financial support for industrial restructuring (issues on which Notre Europe published a study earlier this year: Adaptation of Cohesion policy to the enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gà¶thenburg objectives).
However sad this story, it is not surprising. It only illustrates the poisonous, and perhaps ultimately deadly effect of "net balance" calculations. As Jacques Le Cacheux explains in a recent study, European Budget: the Poisonous Budget Rebate Debate, such a short-term approach is dangerous for the EU project. He recommends dissociating spending decisions from financing decisions.
The Austrian government will present its priorities officially for its Presidency on December 15. Will it be able to steer the EU ship out to sea? Is being an "honest broker", as suggested by Professor Sonja Puntscher-Riekmann in An honest broker in difficult times - Austria's Presidency of the European Union, enough? This study invites to some caution. The little EU boat may unfortunately not sail for a few more weeks.
