| 16/06/2009 
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Alors que le processus de réexamen du budget communautaire touche à sa fin, Notre Europe invite quelques chercheurs et observateurs de premier plan à débattre de la proposition de réforme du budget de l'UE avancée par Alfonso Iozzo, Stefano Micossi et Maria Teresa Salvemini dans une note publiée par le CEPS (A New Budget for the European Union?, CEPS policy brief n° 19, mai 2008).

Les auteurs y proposent de scinder le budget communautaire en trois chapitres distincts. Chaque chapitre endosserait une fonction spécifique (redistribution, financement des biens publics et investissements dans des projets paneuropéens à long terme) et serait financé par différentes ressources (respectivement, les contributions nationales, une TVA européenne et un système d’obligations européennes). Jusqu’à quel point la modification de la structure en trois piliers, telle que le suggèrent ces auteurs, est-elle réalisable ? Une telle évolution contribuerait-elle à en finir avec la logique des ‘soldes nets’ pour laisser la place à des discussions budgétaires réellement basées sur l’intérêt communautaire et le bien public ? Les méthodes de financement proposées – le mécanisme de correction pour le premier chapitre, la TVA pour le deuxième – sont-elles les plus appropriées ? Ce sont là quelques questions parmi d’autres qu’examinent ces contributions d’experts.

Nous lançons le débat avec les contributions de cinq experts et celle de Notre Europe. D’autres contributions sont attendues dans les semaines à venir.


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Ils réagissent
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.
Ils réagissent | 19/10/2009
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.
Ils réagissent | 18/08/2009
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.
Ils réagissent | 21/07/2009
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.
Ils réagissent | 21/07/2009
Uniquement en anglais. 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.
Ils réagissent | 11/06/2009
Uniquement en anglais. 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.
Ils réagissent | 11/06/2009
Uniquement en anglais. 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.
Ils réagissent | 11/06/2009
Uniquement en anglais. 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.
Ils réagissent | 11/06/2009
Uniquement en anglais. 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.
Ils réagissent | 11/06/2009
Uniquement en anglais. 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.
Ils réagissent | 11/06/2009
L'auteur
Notre Europe est un laboratoire de pensée indépendant dédié à l’unité européenne. Sous l’impulsion de Jacques Delors, l’association a l’ambition depuis 1996 de « penser l’unité européenne ». Elle souhaite contribuer aux débats d’actualité avec le recul de l’analyse et la pertinence des propositions d’action en vue d’une union plus étroite des peuples d’Europe. Elle a également pour objectif de promouvoir l’implication active des citoyens et de la société civile dans le processus de construction communautaire et l’émergence d’un espace public européen.