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

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

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European Union. Budget reform does not appear amongst the priorities<br />

on the Commission President’s website, a trawl across the main thinktanks<br />

in Europe also brings little on the budget, and it is a subject which is<br />

practically absent in the media. It is worthwhile asking why this subject<br />

today is so uninteresting both to the politicians and to the general public.<br />

Surely the budget should be a core element of the reform to make the EU<br />

fit for purpose in the global age.<br />

<strong>The</strong> simplest reason is of course that there are very many important<br />

subjects on the agenda of the Union today. Climate change, energy<br />

security, the world financial crisis, economic reform in the member states<br />

and the future of the euro, and foreign relations, including the relationship<br />

with Russia and the situation in Iran, are just a few of the complex<br />

problems the Union is currently dealing with. <strong>The</strong> negotiation of the next<br />

financial perspective after 2013 will not get under way until the second<br />

half of 2010, long after the current Commission comes to an end and a<br />

year after the elections to the European Parliament. Several member<br />

states will also have elections between now and then. Why then should<br />

today’s politicians get involved in a subject which their successors will<br />

have to deal with?<br />

<strong>The</strong>re are however more complex reasons. For the European Commission<br />

there seems little reason to disturb the relatively smooth cooperation with<br />

the member states by pushing a budgetary reform which is bound to create<br />

major problems between them. For the member states, there is little<br />

interest in unnecessarily introducing a subject which will cause domestic<br />

problems-this is of course particularly true for the United Kingdom.<br />

Indeed several of the member states appear to have concluded that the<br />

current financial perspective is not such a bad deal after all. One might for<br />

instance expect Poland to be in favour of negotiating the end of budget<br />

rebates for the net contributors to the budget, towards which it has to pay.<br />

However if reform of the British budget rebate implies thorough reform of<br />

the CAP, and perhaps the introduction of member state co-financing, then<br />

it is best for Poland not to force the pace on budgetary reform.<br />

Finally for the European Parliament, the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty<br />

would be a significant change to its budgetary power. <strong>The</strong> distinction<br />

between obligatory and non-obligatory expenditure would disappear<br />

allowing the EP to seriously consider agricultural expenditure for the first<br />

time. Lisbon would introduce the medium-term Financial Perspective<br />

into the Treaties and while the Council remains in charge, it would have to<br />

obtain the consent of the European Parliament before agreeing itself by<br />

Chapter 4 – Alan Mayhew 75

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