Brussels, 24/10/2003 (Agence Europe) - At Friday's informal Development Ministers' meeting in Trieste (EUROPE 21 October p 15), the Commission took stock of reactions from Member States and some new accession countries to its communication on including the European Development Fund in the budget by 2007. Many countries: France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Poland and Hungary supported integrating the EDF into the general EDF budget.
The United Kingdom, Spain and Ireland were against. These three Member States contribution to the EDF in percentage of the total contribution is currently less that it would become by applying the contribution key to the Community budget (the United Kingdom thinks this contribution will rise from 18.78% of the Community budget as opposed to 12.69% of the EDF. For Spain 7.46% as opposed to 5.84%, Ireland 1.19% as opposed to 0.62%. Germany want more time for reflection.