Negative reactions from different places. It is rare for a European Commission document to provoke such sharp criticism and from so many different sources. I am referring to the communication, “Reforming the budget, changing Europe”, summarised in EUROPE 10004. It needs to be pointed out and emphasised that in its current form, it is not a Commission document but a draft from one of its services on which it is planning to speak on 24 November and could therefore be subject to revision or even be withdrawn. A re-examination of the text is taking place and it has not been ruled out that the final decision will be delayed. Certain sources have indicated that the project quite broadly incorporates the orientations of President Barroso, and the reactions that preceded the final version of the text are understandable. From the moment Mr Barroso was confirmed at the presidency of the European Commission for another five years, a document bearing his signature would to a certain extent anticipate the orientations of the new Commission. It is therefore understandable that the political forces and actors concerned responded in advance, with the most vehement protests coming from two sources: a) those defending European agriculture; b) supporters of the cohesion policy, considered as an essential element of Community solidarity.
Many positive factors. Of course the draft contains a lot of elements which, far from being criticised, are largely shared and considered as positive: a) the creation of genuine EU “own resources”, which will enable it to be rid of the notion of a fair return (balance between what each member state pays and what it receives); b) the eradication of anomalies in national contributions to common spending by getting rid of, in particular, the “British cheque”; c) the enhancement of budgetary flexibility by facilitating the transfer of resources from one section to another. Other innovative initiatives are suggested, such as setting up a single fund for the Trans-European Networks.
These reforms and initiative have been envisaged and demanded for years. The question some observers have been asking is to what extent it is appropriate for them to be proposed by a Commission at the end of its mandate, when they could indeed be taken up and developed by the “Barroso II” Commission.
Defence of economic cohesion instruments. Criticism is mainly concentrated in two areas: regional and agricultural policy. The draft chapter on regional policy was felt as if it were the liquidation of what Europe has done and what it is continuing to do for the moment in promoting economic cohesion. According to an initial calculation (to be verified), the result of the orientations proposed would be that two thirds of the European regions currently benefiting from cohesion policy would be excluded from it: more than 200 out of 273 regions. Regional policy would no longer be European and would become national again, which was why the reactions were so sharp at the European Parliament (EUROPE 10006 and 10008), especially from regional organisations (EUROPE 10005 for the Assembly of the European Regions and 10008 for the Conference of the Peripheral Maritime Regions) which described the draft contents as a “total aberration”.
The Committee of the Regions (CoR), a Community body, has not yet responded and normally has to wait for the document to be definitive before it can do so, because the current draft has no legal value yet. Its president, however, Luc Van den Brande, has already said in a speech (6 November in Turin, to the conference of organisations uniting the regions and which has legislative power) that the CoR under his presidency would never allow the Lisbon Treaty objectives on regional cohesion to be abandoned: “It is important that the European Commission knows this”. He also defended the notion of Multilevel Governance (governance at several levels), which must, in his opinion, involve the European, national, regional and local authorities, with responsibility being wielded at each of these levels. We are aware that the CoR approved a White Paper on the notion of Multilevel Governance (EUROPE 9922) last June.
Weak point. The weakest link in the cohesion policy as it currently stands is obviously located in the analyses made by the European Court of Auditors. The court recognises that Community spending accounts for two years have been reliable overall. Yet, at the same time, it also underlines that “irregular payments are still too high in certain areas, particularly cohesion” (see EUROPE 10016). This report refers to the budget for 2008 but nothing would appear to suggest that the situation has substantially changed in the meantime.
Commitment appropriations for the cohesion policy in 2008 accounted for the very considerable figure of €48.2bn, more than a third of the budget. Moreover, around €4bn should not have been reimbursed by the EU to member states that had anticipated expenditure because the projects were not eligible, or the rules on awarding contracts had not been respected, or for other reasons.
The examples of abuse, as summarised in EUROPE 10016 on the report of the Court of Auditors, are well expressed and sometimes staggering, such as the financing linked to a water distribution network that has never worked and that can never work because the dam that was supposed to supply the network has never been filled with water. I recall reading other cases of inefficiency and fraud in the press, which were just as incredible.
It is true that the European Commission has improved inspections, suspends funding and increasingly recovers financing that has incorrectly been paid out. It is, however, obvious that the distrust and misgivings about maintaining Community funding will continue as long as the Court of Auditors denounces the existence of billions of euro being made in irregular payments. Even if the European Commission highlights the fact that real fraud is below 0.2% of all payments executed, we know that adversaries of the cohesion policy exist even at the European Parliament.
Prevent total distortion of common agricultural policy (CAP). Agriculture suffers in the European Commission document because the latter seeks to radically reduce the funding for the CAP, particularly direct aid and market intervention mechanisms. Spending would also, to a large extent, become national again, especially for the co-funding of direct aid. European level agricultural organisations and cooperatives (COPA and COGECA) have responded robustly (EUROPE 10008). The European Parliament's agriculture committee will also undoubtedly do so if the European Commission communication is approved. It should not be forgotten that the European Parliament's powers will be substantially strengthened by the Lisbon Treaty in agricultural affairs, particularly with regard to CAP spending. The parliamentary committee for agriculture will assume its full weight and the plenary sessions are expected to no longer express contradictory votes on European agricultural policy or relations with non-EU countries. More powers ought to mean more coherence, without making concessions to demagogy.
This column has already explicitly underlined the necessity for the new Commission (Barroso II) to define a global vision of what agriculture means to Europe and the world (EUROPE 9997) taking all the different aspects into account. I will simply limit myself to expressing a little astonishment at the direction taken to completely distort the greatest success story in European solidarity. This policy puts all farmers at the same level, whatever the GDP of their country, and considers farming as part of the common wealth which safeguards traditions, nature and landscapes. It responds to an urgent demand from poor countries seeking to contend with food deficits in the world and avoid famine in the future.
A question of political expediency? Some observers are asking about the political expediency of the European Commission adopting a document of this kind at a time when its mandate is coming to an end and it is in charge of managing “current affairs”. Even if we agree with this fairly sweeping interpretation of this notion (EUROPE 1000), we can see that certain commissioners have already left the institution and others are preparing to. From one day to the next we are expecting the designations of the new commissioners. Is it therefore expedient in the current situation to define orientations for the future? Is it normal that commissioners still in their posts give decisions on the perspectives for future action just when the new commissioners are about to be designated and several of them are already known?
One likely commissioner (he has already begun in the current Commission and is expecting to be confirmed) is Pawe³ Samecki from Poland, who has decided not to be influenced by “suggestions contained in draft documents that are still not finalised”. This is a nice way of saying that the current draft, as it stands, will not become a Commission document - which will reassure a lot of people.
(F.R./transl.rh)