24/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - The EU must radically reform its means of financing to avoid becoming "unmanageable", and bring in economic policies that focus on investment: that was the sentiment expressed by the French Economic and Social Committee in the draft opinion it was to adopt on Wednesday 24 September during its plenary, reported Agence France Presse (AFP). In this draft opinion, the French Committee stressed the fat that "the enlargement of Europe makes a radical reform of its means of financing inevitable, as the current system is not viable in the long-term", and that Europe does not currently have "budgetary tools to allow it to play the role of shock absorber for economic cycles". In order to fund this budgetary policy, the French Committee pleaded in favour of the creation of a European tax "which could come from the transfer to the European budget of a proportion of company tax (say 3%) and a proportion of VAT".