Brussels, 17/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 16 April, the European Parliament in Strasbourg approved draft legislation on the European Union's own resource system for 2014-2020, adopting a number of amendments without legal value because the Council of Ministers has sole power in this domain, but as a means to point out the EP's expectations when it comes to financing the EU's budget in the future.
Adopting - by 383 votes in favour to 101 against, and 35 abstentions - a report by Jean-Luc Dehaene and Anne E. Jensen on the EU's own resource system, the Parliament points out that it has always demanded that the EU's budget be “fully financed” from own resources. The Parliament says that the “existing system of own resources, (…) is non-transparent, unfair, not subject to parliamentary control, highly complex and totally incomprehensible to European citizens”. The Parliament considers that such a system violates, in essence, the letter and the spirit of the Treaty.
The Parliament strongly recommends root-and-branch reform of the own resources system. It regrets that the Council was unable to make any progress on the reform of the own resources system on the basis of those legislative proposals, and that the final European Council political agreement on 8 February 2013 has even introduced new rebates and exceptions.
High-Level Group. The Parliament notes: “The outcome of the work of the High Level Group shall be assessed in an inter-institutional conference during 2016, with the participation of national parliaments. On the basis of the results of this work, the Commission will assess if new own resources initiatives are appropriate. This assessment will be done in parallel to the multiannual financial framework for 2014-2020 post-electoral review/revision, to be launched by the Commission by the end of 2016 at the latest. The European Parliament believes that the work of this high level group should pave the way for possible reforms to be agreed and become operational for the period covered by the next MFF.”
Adopting a report on implementation measures for the EU's own resource system, the Parliament makes a number of comments, pointing out that it has always supported the European Commission's proposals unveiled in June 2011 to reduce the share of national contributions to the EU budget to no more than 40% by scrapping the current, purely statistical, VAT-based contribution. It notes that replacing it with a genuine VAT-based own resource by creating a new own resource that replaces rebates and correction mechanisms with a system of set amounts for the 2014-2020 period was a step in the right direction to ensure that the EU budget income complies with the letter and spirit of the EU treaty. National contributions currently account for 74% of the EU budget.
Finally, the Parliament endorsed the draft Council regulation on the methods and procedure for making available the traditional, VAT and GNI-based own-resources and on the measures to meet cash requirements. (LC)