Authors Iain Begg | Gabriel Glöckler | Anke Hassel ... - The Europaeum

policy proposal asks itself what the budgetary impact of that policy will be
for its net contribution to the Union budget. This means that policy which
may be important for the future development of the Union is voted down
because it has negative net budgetary implications for a few member
states.
A critique of the current EU budget
and financial framework
Budget expenditure goals have been criticised by a large number of
independent economic institutions, most particularly by the “Sapir
Report” which was commissioned by the EU Commission itself and which
has come to be a point of reference for those interested in budget reform. 1
The basic criticism is that the EU budget supports mainly a sector,
agriculture, which is one of the least dynamic in the Union and cohesion
funds go to countries which are not poor – roughly 45% of the funds
allocated in the period 2007-13 will go to the EU15. On the other hand the
sectors and the policies which are important for the future of the Union
are barely supported.
Logically the EU budget should support European public goods and the
principle of solidarity established by the Treaties. In budget-speak,
expenditure through the EU budget should also show “EU value added”. It
would also be sensible to deal with current expenditure separately from
investment expenditure.
European public goods are those goods and services which benefit the
whole European Union even if the expenditure takes place in only a subset
of member states. A typical example is the protection of the external
frontier, which serves all member states not simply those with an external
frontier. There is for instance a strong argument that Poland should not
be expected to bear the whole cost of controlling its eastern frontier
because this action is basically protecting Germany, the Benelux countries
and the rest of the Community from illegal migration and international
crime.
Where it is economically more efficient to support actions at the EU level
rather than at the member state or regional level then these actions may
best be financed through the European Union budget. This is often a
question of scale – an example would be certain forms of research and
development, which only make sense if they are carried out on a large
enough scale, jointly with the support of all the member states.
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After the crisis: A new socio-economic settlement for the EU