Brussels, 08/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 8 January, the conference of presidents (comprising the president of the European Parliament and leaders of its political groups) discussed reform of the system for financing the EU budget and called for more ambition to be shown on this reform.
Mario Monti, the leader of the high level group on own resources, presented the conference of presidents with the outline of the first report from the high level group (http://ec.europa.eu/budget/library/biblio/documents/multiannual_framework/HLGOR_1stassessment2014final_en.pdf ). However, there are still no proposals. Recommendations are expected for the end of 2016, when there is a mid-term review of the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework.
The group, comprising members of the Parliament, Commission and Council, admits in its first report (which analyses the current situation) that the system of own resources is very complex, has not changed significantly in 25 years, and has over the years become a system of national contributions with few autonomous resources.
There are three types of own resources: (1) traditional own resources (customs duties on imports from outside the EU, and sugar levies. The EU member states keep 20% of the amounts as collection costs); (2) VAT-based resources (a uniform rate of 0.3% of the harmonised VAT base is transferred to the EU budget from each member state); (3) GNI-based resources (each member state transfers a standard percentage of its gross national income to the EU). Although it was designed just to cover the total expenditure not covered by the other own resources, this system has become the main source of income for the EU budget.
Monti was invited to discuss this issue at the European Parliament's budgets committee in the near future. (LC)