Beginning on 1st May” “

A proposal “at once ambitious and realistic”: on Tuesday, 10 February, during the session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the Commission presented a “communication” that outlines the financial prospects for the period 2007-2013, and specifies the budgetary measures necessary to support the continental economy and extend EU policies to the ten new members of the enlarged European Union. Parliament and Council will have time to propose the necessary adjustments, approve the document and render it operative by the end of 2006. Greater resources for Community policies. The document drafted by the Executive insists on one principle: the “common European home”, which will pass from 15 to 25 member states on 1st May and within two years will probably incorporate Romania and Bulgaria, has a need for additional resources. To increase the cohesion between the economies of the various countries, extend the common policies to the new members, and make European citizenship effective for 450 million inhabitants, the Executive proposes to increase transfers from member states to Brussels (the main source of revenue for the EU budget) from the current annual 1% of gross domestic product (GDP) to 1.15%. The Commission has opted for a line of compromise (the maximum it could have exacted, according to the Treaties, was 1.24%). This position has won the support of the President of the European Parliament, Pat Cox. The welcome given to the document by six states (Germany, France, Great Britain, Netherlands, Austria and Sweden) was however cool, if not downright hostile; in December, they had asked the budget to be frozen. The German Minister of Finance Hans Eichel and Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown have also rejected the document. The figures proposed by the Commission would raise EU revenue from 124.6 billion euros in 2007 to 143.1 in 2013. EU expenditures will continue to be mainly concentrated on agricultural policy, which absorbs some 40% of resources, followed by structural funds and cohesion policies, “internal” policies (e.g. energy and infrastructures for transport), and humanitarian aid. Investments for research (+200%) and education (+300%) are rising sharply. The Commission’s three priorities. The Commission sees three great priorities for the future of the Union: promoting sustainable development, translating into practice the concept of European citizenship, and reinforcing the role of the EU on the international scene. Addressing the European Parliament, the President of the Commission Romano Prodi indicated the challenges that the Union will have to face after 1st May, when the frontiers of the EU will be widened to comprise another ten countries with socio-economic levels far lower than the standards of the Fifteen. To “respond to citizens’ needs”, “increase prosperity” and “transform the Union into a dynamic economy, based on knowledge”, we need – said Prodi – to “plan expenditures, and reconcile them with growing needs and limited resources”. “Some states – he added – have declared that the EU budget ought not to exceed 1% of European GDP. This position has the defect of putting figures before the political project. It’s like starting to build a house from its roof”. According to the President of the Commission, “now that the Union is seeing its final frontiers take shape, the time has come to imagine a genuine European identity”. Increasing competitiveness, improving social services. According to the Commission, “to increase business competitiveness we have only one course of action: quality, technological development, research and innovation. The world of education needs to be opened up to ongoing training”, while to make European citizenship effective “a homogeneous level of individual rights, security, protection and quality of life needs to be ensured over the whole of the Union’s territory”. Hence the need – said Prodi – for specific measures against crime and terrorism, joint control of external frontiers and migratory flows, and “the development of those services of general interest that form the backbone of our social model, such as health, food safety, education, energy and transport”. A wide-ranging debate followed in the chamber, with diversified positions, for or against the document. EP President Pat Cox declared that “maintaining resources at their current level when ten new countries join the Union”, would be tantamount to reducing EU commitments “at a time when our tasks are being increased. This is not the moment, therefore, to downgrade Europe”.