Brussels, 08/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - “As long as we don't have the €3.9 billion [payment appropriations still needed for 2013] there is no question of voting” on the EU's multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2014-2020, warned Alain Lamassoure (EPP, France), the head of the European Parliament's budgets committee, at a press conference in Strasbourg on Tuesday 8 October. Coreper could discuss the draft amending budget (no 8 for 2013) concerning the €3.9 billion on Wednesday 9 October (an agreement has already been obtained on an initial envelope of €7.2 billion).
The European Parliament is due to vote on the whole 2014-2020 MFF package in Strasbourg on Wednesday 23 October, provided that three conditions are met: (1) the assurance that the shortfall in payment appropriations needed to conclude 2013 is obtained - in other words, €3.9 billion (“we are counting on a Council agreement, otherwise we will postpone the 23 October vote”; (2) completion of the negotiations on the content of the policies financed by the budget and completion of the negotiations on the legal bases (they are finished on the most costly policies, like agriculture, but not yet fully completed on cohesion, even if “an agreement in the coming days” is apparently close at hand; (3) details on the way in which the high level group on the reform of own resources will be created, whom it will comprise and how it will work (as well as its timetable). For the European Parliament, this last issue is the most important (along with the clause for reviewing the MFF agreement in 2016-2017), said Lamassoure. If the budget can't be increased (indeed it is decreasing), it is because the EU no longer has the financial autonomy provided for by the treaties and that this financial autonomy no longer exists, he repeated.
The poorer a country is, the more it contributes to the EU budget. When the Parliament votes on the 2014 budget, it will for the first time debate the resources envelope, Lamassoure pointed out. A table shows that the poorer a country is, the greater its contribution to the EU budget (compared to its GDP). The high level group on own resources aims to raise the question publicly and to have the current situation and alternative solutions studied by the three institutions. Then in 2016 an interparliamentary conference (with all the national parliaments) would be organised and also an interinstitutional one. The Netherlands, which has a per capita income of €25,000, only pays 0.68% of its GNI, while Bulgaria, which only has a per capita income of €3,700, pays 0.93% of its GNI - which is unacceptable in Lamassoure's view. This is the effect of all the rebates and of a number of advantages obtained by certain countries year after year (the possibility of certain countries keeping part of their VAT receipts for themselves when these should be due to the EU, or of keeping part of their customs duties - like the ports of Rotterdam or Antwerp). This is unacceptable from a point of view of fairness, transparency and democratic control, in Lamassoure's opinion.
Answering questions from the press, Lamassoure said that no French government has ever said that French taxpayers are paying €1 billion every year in the place of British taxpayers in order to finance the European budget.
Anne Jensen (ALDE, Denmark), the rapporteur on own resources, reiterated that the European Parliament wants a new system of own resources for the EU. The Parliament is calling for a working group on own resources to be set up before the Parliament's vote on the MFF. “The current system is that the rich countries pay less than the poor countries compared to their national wealth”, said Jensen. Taking rebates and special arrangements into account, countries like the Netherlands pay 0.68% while others like Lithuania or Slovakia pay 0.88% or 0.89%.
Lamassoure took the example of Lithuania, which has a per capita income of €7,000, and which pays 0.9%, while Sweden, which has a per capita income of €30,000, only pays 0.75%. Lithuania pays proportionately a quarter more than Sweden, which is “scandalous”, in Lamassoure's words. He stated that Lithuania did not protest because the overall EU funding from which this country benefits represents a third of the Lithuanian budget. In Lamassoure's view, we have ended up with a budget which is European only in name - “In fact it's about an addition of national contributions in order to finance an addition of national policies”. In reality, the truly European policies, which have European effects, are limited to heading 1a (research, Erasmus, aid to SMEs), heading 3 (Europe of the citizens) and heading 4 (external policy). However, the big amounts of budget, which represent 70-80% of the EU budget, “are policies for which the budgetary debate is based on fair returns and not on the European interest in these policies”, Lamassoure concluded, adding that the European Parliament wants to exit from this “infernal logic” (we want to “explode” this system, he said). (LC/transl.fl)