FUTURE FINANCING
OF THE EU: WHO PAYS AND HOW?
Financing agenda 2000
33. The object of the Commission report which
triggered this enquiry was "to review the performance of
the EU own resources, including the search for new own resources
as well as the possibility of applying a fixed rate of call for
the VAT resource; and to examine the correction mechanism in favour
of the United Kingdom and the issue of contributions to EU budget
raised by several Member States"[25].
34. Its conclusions may be summarised as follows:
- although the equity of gross contributions among
Member States has improved (primarily as a result of the increasing
importance of the GNP resource), the system "has not secured
genuine financial autonomy for the EU, and various interventions
in the contributions system, including the correction mechanism
in favour of the United Kingdom, have inhibited transparency in
the financial relationships of the Member States and the EU budget"[26];
- the system could be reformed by developing new
own resources[27]
or by simplifying the present contribution arrangements, relying
increasingly or even exclusively on the GNP-based resource, possibly
with an element of progressivity;
- the issue of budgetary imbalances (inequitable
net contributions) "has re-emerged in the budget debate"[28];
the report reviews the functioning of the existing correction
mechanism in favour of the United Kingdom, and the emerging budgetary
imbalances of other Member States, and considers how they are
likely to be affected by the Agenda 2000 proposals.
35. Three courses of action are considered which
could, the Commission says, address the imbalances if there were
a political consensus:
- the reduction or phasing out of the present correction
mechanism (that is, the United Kingdom abatement);
- corrections on the expenditure side of the budget,
in particular co-financing of CAP expenditure;
- a generalised correction mechanism (that is,
a general reassessment of contributions), for which various options
are suggested.
36. In the course of our enquiry, we have considered
all these issues. Our witnesses' views on them, and our Opinions,
are set out in Part 4.
25 11666/98 COM(98) 560: op cit, page i. Back
26
loc cit. Back
27
For details of the options considered by the Commission, see paragraph
80 below. Back
28
11666/98, loc cit. Back
|
