Brussels, 02/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 2 May, the European Commission adopted its preliminary draft budget for the year 2008, which will, for the first time, give over the highest proportion of commitment appropriations to policies which favour growth and employment within the EU. The preliminary draft, which kicks off the procedure for the adoption of the 2008 budget at the end of the year, devotes 44.2% of total EU expenditure to policies related to the Lisbon strategy and cohesion, against 43.6% to expenditure on the protection of natural resources, including the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The Commission is thus showing the political priorities it intends to hold onto in the mid-term reform of the entire EU budget. Furthermore, the Commission is asking for the funds necessary to create 785 new jobs in 2008, to cover the requirements arising from the two most recent waves of expansion (2004 and 2007).
Dalia Grybauskaité, the commissioner with responsibility for financial programming and the budget, announced at a press conference that “today's budget proposal marks a historical shift for the EU: for the first time, spending directly related to growth and jobs take the biggest share of the EU budget. This proves that the Commission is steady in its ambition of refocusing the budget on the global challenges facing the EU as a whole”. She explained that “more funds are now available for policies geared towards economic progress, without sacrificing the efforts needed in other areas, notably the environment, energy, freedom and security, and Europe's common foreign and security policy”.
Total volume: for 2008, the Commission is proposing a total budget of €129.1 billion in commitment appropriations, which corresponds to 1.03% of the gross national income (GNI) of the EU 27 and an increase of 2% on the budget under way (2007). The envisaged total of payment appropriations is €121.5 billion (0.97% of GNI), 5.3% more than 2007. The budget earmarked for competitiveness (research, the trans-European networks, learning…) and cohesion (structural actions), proposed at a level of €57.2 billion in commitment appropriations (+4.2% on 2007 levels), is higher than the envelope earmarked for the management of natural resources (agriculture, environment, fisheries…) for the first time, which is estimated at €56.3 billion (the same as in 2007). In payment appropriations, however, the totals for the heading “management of natural resources” are still higher, at €54.7 billion, than those earmarked for the competitiveness and cohesion programmes (€50.1 billion).
Competitiveness (heading 1a): the preliminary draft budget provides an increase of 9.6%, to €10.3 billion, of the 2008 commitment appropriations given over to these programmes. In payments, the increase on the 2007 budget attains a level of 35%. According to the Commission, funds for research are set to increase by 11% compared to 2007 in commitment appropriations (a total of €5.5 billion of which will go to the seventh framework research programme). On top of this, the Commission plans to grant +14% of commitment appropriations for the trans-European networks (taking it to a level of €972 million), +51% for Galileo (bringing it to €151 million) and +64% for the Erasmus programme. Only the legal basis for the TEN and Galileo programmes have not yet been adopted by the Council and the Parliament, but there will be no ill consequences from these delays, the Commission states.
Cohesion (heading 1b): the Commission has earmarked nearly €46.9 billion in commitment appropriations, which is an extra 3.1% on 2007 levels, including €38.72 billion for the Structural Funds (+0.9% compared to 2007) and €8.15 billion for the Cohesion Fund (+14.4%). The 12 new member states (the 10 which joined in 2004, plus Romania and Bulgaria, which joined the EU in 2007) will share 47% of the total envelope for structural actions in 2008, compared to 44% for the budget under way (2007). The Commission is planning to phase the new member states into this policy, with 53% of the funds being granted to them in 2013. In payments, the sums proposed under the Cohesion Policy are €40.6 billion, or 7.5% more than 2007.
Natural resources (heading 2): the total for this heading will be €56.2 billion EUR (commitments), including 42.5 billion for market agricultural expenditure and direct support to farmers (-0.5% compared to 2007), 12.5 billion for rural development (+1.6%), €938 million for fisheries, and €267 million for the environmental programme “Life +” (+11%). The Commission anticipates a reduction of €612 million (or 11%), compared to 2007, in commitments given over to market intervention, by dint of past and present sectorial reform efforts (fruit and vegetables and wine) and the favourable market conditions anticipated, particularly for milk and cereals. Direct aid will increase by just 1%, due mainly to that to be paid to the Romanian and Bulgarian farmers.
In payment appropriations, the total budget proposed for this heading is €54.7 billion, of which €42.4 billion will go to market and agricultural expenditure.
Liberty, security and justice (heading 3a): expenditure will increase by 10.8% under the preliminary draft budget, to reach €691 million (commitments). The sharpest increase (+24%) concerns action in the field of the management of migratory flows (bringing it to a total in excess of €390 million).
Citizenship (heading 3b): the Commission is planning a total envelope of €597 million in commitment appropriations, representing an increase of 11% on 2007 levels, and not including two items funded exceptionally in 2007 (the transitional facility for Romania and Bulgaria and the mobilisation of the Solidarity Fund in response to natural disasters). The public health and consumer protection programmes see their budgets increased by 15%, the “Europe for the citizens” programme will receive an extra 18% and the MEDIA programme nearly 21%.
The EU, global partner (heading 4): the Commission is planning to devote €6.9 billion in commitment appropriations (1.5% more than in 2007) and €7.9 billion in payments (+4.8%) to the EU's actions in the world. The proposed budget for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) is increased by 26% compared to 2007, to €200.2 million. Development cooperation remains the principal budgetary item of this heading, with €2.2 billion, or an increase of 1.9%. The EU budget will grant €1.4 billion to pre-accession instruments (continuing negotiations with Turkey and Croatia and preparations for the application of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). The leeway remaining within the limit of this heading 4 of external actions is €330 million, according to the preliminary draft, although the EU is expecting to fund new actions in Kosovo and Palestine next year. At this stage, however, the Commission is not planning to mobilise the flexibility instrument for 2008 (which gives an option of exceeding the limit of any heading by €200 million, in case of unexpected events).
Administration (heading 5): the preliminary draft makes available €7.3 billion in commitment appropriations for administrative expenditure, or 5.7 more than 2007. €3.4 billion of this (+4.1%) will go on the functioning expenditure of the Commission (not counting either pensions or expenses on European schools), including the recruitment of 860 new jobs required for the recent waves of enlargement (a recruitment figure has brought down to 785, after certain posts have been converted into temporary agent contracts). Expenditure given over to pensions (covering all institutions of the EU) has soared (+14%, to €1 billion), with more and more employees retiring: the Spanish and Portuguese, who joined the institutions of the EU in 1986, are now massively starting to benefit from their rights.
Evaluation of human resources
At a meeting with the press on Wednesday 2 May, Ms Grybauskaité announced that she had sent the results of her assessment of human resources within the Commission to the European Parliament, as she committed to do last year at the adoption of the 2007 budget. The report confirms the need to employ 860 new European civil servants in 2008 (including 250 Romanians and Bulgarians), given the waves of enlargement of 2004 and 2007. Between 2003 in 2008, the Commission planned to take on 3960 civil servants from the 10 countries which joined the EU in 2007. It is planning to take on 850 more between now and 2009, for the enlargement to Romania and Bulgaria. The commissioner explained that the year 2008 corresponds to the end of the civil servant recruitment period of the EU10. In 2009, the Commission will ask for just 250 new jobs (for Romanians and Bulgarians). The analysis also shows that 1600 new jobs will be needed from 2007 to 2009 to take account of the new priorities of the Commission (climate change, research, Lisbon strategy, competition, internal and external policies…), but that these posts will be created by dint of redeployments (no additional resources). In this context, the Commission is planning to redeploy 565 civil servants between its services in 2008.
Mid-term revision of the budget of the EU
The Budget Commissioner explained to the press that internal work on the mid-term reform of the budget of the EU was being carried out according to plan. The objective is to determine the structure of the European budget after the end of the current financial framework (2007-2013). Under the Portuguese presidency (next July or, more likely, September) the Commission intends to adopt a key document laying out the main political options on the future of the EU budget (including own resources). After a long period of consultation, the Commission will make its proposals, late in 2008 or early in 2009, on the mid-term revision of the budget. Ms Grybauskaité stated that the Commission was to concentrate on the presentation of political options, and not figures. She also called upon the member states not to focus on the money, “otherwise, there will be no mid-term reform”. Certain countries, however, are already returning to the attack, to demand that the budget be limited to 1% of GNI from 2013 onwards. The commissioner takes the view that it is essential first of all to define policies which the EU hopes to follow before setting the necessary sums of money. She also confirmed that the bill of health of the CAP would be mainly a “technical exercise”, to ensure that the functioning of this policy is “as good as possible”. It is worth noting that the total of agricultural expenditure (market expenditure and direct aid) has been frozen until 2013 at 2006 levels, by dint of the agreement of the European Council of October 2002. Ms Grybauskaité stressed that this agreement would not be called into question by the mid-term revision. The proposals of the Commission on the future financial framework (from 2014 onwards) will not be presented until 2011, the commissioner confirmed. (lc)