Brussels, 27/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - Reimer Böge MEP, member of the European Parliament's budgets committee and rapporteur for the financial framework 2014-2020, said on Wednesday 27 June: “It's important for the European Parliament to remind us that we have to follow the Lisbon Treaty.” In other words, the budget has to be fully funded from independent sources, known as “own resources” in EU-speak. The EP has already warned that it will not endorse the next budget without agreement in principle on changing the own resource system. Despite an “intensive exchange of views” between the Council of Ministers and the EP negotiators, Böge says there was still “no guarantee of an agreement” by the end of the year. MEPs want to change the system whereby cash is deduced in line with member States gross national revenue, replacing it with a new tax and deductions system. This would mean that more of the budget would come from European cash. The EP backs the European Commission's suggestion of including in the changes to the own resource system a financial transaction tax and a new type of European VAT (there is already a VAT levy for Europe), which would reduce the amount of cash member states have to come up with as a proportion of their GNI. At the ECOFIN Council of Friday 22 June, the Danish Presidency found it was impossible to get EU27 agreement on an FTT (see (EUROPE 10640), but Böge said “the door is more open than in the past” and the FTT could be introduced using the enhanced cooperation mechanism if at least nine member states request it.
Böge said it was important to make good use of EU funding and called for better unity and flexibility on the budget with this in mind. Progress is being made, he said.
On the upcoming transfer from the Danish to the Cypriot Presidency, Böge said there had been “a good atmosphere with the Danish Presidency. We hope to continue like this under the Cypriot Presidency” and hope agreement on the budget will be reached in October, failing which it might have to be postponed until the spring of 2013. The 2014-2020 financial framework and the question of EU own resources will be on the agenda of the 28-29 June European summit. (EL/transl.fl)