“Reconciling political priorities with financial needs”; improving the structure of the budget through greater flexibility”; and “improving the quality of implementation of EU funding”: German MEP Reimer Böge, author of the final report, described in these terms the three pillars of the accord on the Financial Perspectives 2007/2013, defined in April and signed in Strasbourg last week during the plenary session of the European Parliament (15-18 May). To add a note of solemnity to the accord between Parliament and Council – the two main budgetary authorities of the EU -, after the discussion and the vote in the debating chamber, the President of the EP, the Spaniard Josep Borrell, and the current President of the European Council, the Austrian Wolfgang Schüssel, signed the accord in the presence of the assembled MEPs. Borrell explained that “this accord reaffirms the role of Parliament as a budgetary authority” and declared that “the compromise reached represents the most that Parliament could concede but also the minimum to be able to make the EU function”. Borrell also emphasized that “Europe costs only 26 cents per day for each European”. The EU budget will apply to the next seven years, even though a mid-term revision is planned in 2009. The budget entails an overall appropriation of 866 billion euros, equivalent to 1.045 percent of the gross domestic product of EU member states, and is already geared to future enlargements, comprising funds for Romania and Bulgaria.
