Brussels, 14/07/2004 (Agence Europe) - As anticipated, the European Commission has adopted a series of legislative proposals on the main EU policies on for the forthcoming financial perspectives (2007-2013). They focus on the cohesion policy, agriculture and rural development and fishing, the trans-European networks, education, culture and social policy. These proposals have been submitted to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament for adoption before 2007.
The President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, said that the current ceiling for own resources (1.24% of EU gross national income) would not have to be changed, given that expenditure during the period would not exceed 1.14% of average GNP. At the same time, the Commission has adopted a communication analysing the added value of the new EU policies on the table.
As per its February communication, the Commission plans, for the EU enlarged to 27, a budget of 143,000 billion EUR in payment appropriations in 2013 (or 1.15% of EU gross national income at that date), taking account of the budgetisation of the European Development Fund (EDF) and the solidarity fund. Over the whole period 2007-2013, the budget will represent on average 1.14% of EU GNI in payment appropriations (1.12% without the EDF), which is well below the current ceiling of own resources of 1.24% of GNI. In payment appropriations, however, expenditure would be 158.450 billion EUR in 2013, representing 1.27% of GNI at that date.
In the field of regional policy, the Commission had adopted proposed regulations for the period 2007-2013. The Commission proposes 336.1 billion EUR for the three objectives of the revised cohesion policy, 78.54% of which (264 billion EUR) will go to the "convergence" objective, 17.22% (or 57.9 billion EUR) to the "regional competitiveness and employment" objective, and 3.94% (13.2 billion EUR) to the "territorial co-operation" objective (see EUROPE of 9 and 10 July 2004 for the details).
In the field of transport, the Commission has adopted three proposed regulations and proposes to grant the following for the period 2007-2013: 20.69 billion EUR for the development of the trans-European networks (20.35 billion EUR for transport and 340 million for energy), 740 million EUR for the Marco Polo II programme, and lastly 1 billion EUR to add to start-up aid for the satellite radio-navigation system, Galileo. EUROPE will come back to this.