A budget for growth

Two – complementary – facets of the same medal: this is relationship between the budget of the EU and that of its Member States according to the Commission, which presented the 2013 draft budget a few days ago. Accordingly, the former is geared at growth, while national budgets are geared towards rigour, owing to the economic and financial crisis.Investments above all. It is now up to EU Council and the European Parliament to come to an agreement on the budget proposal. First, the Council will make its position known on the Draft Budget in July 2012, followed by the Parliament. A conciliation procedure will be triggered in case of disagreement. Commission President José Manuel Barroso said: "the budget is meant to boost employment and restore economic growth". The draft budget "reflects the European Council’s statements that growth and employment in the EU can only be achieved by combining fiscal consolidation and investment into future growth". It concentrates investment "on the priority areas defined in the EU’s growth strategy Europe 2020, while at the same time taking into account the difficult economic context and pressure on national budgets". The draft budget 2013 "freezes the Commission’s administrative budget at well below inflation level, while cutting its staff by 1%, the first step towards the goal of a 5% reduction of staff in 5 years".Delivering results. On the whole, the budget proposal for next year amounts to 150,9 billion euro in commitments, "a 2% increase on last year, in line with the current inflation rate. Payments – i.e. expenses – represent €137,9 billion, amounting to a 6.8% increase. "They are the logical consequence of past commitments", said says Budget and Financial Programming Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski. He added: "The vast majority of people across the EU feel the daily pain of the crisis as their national, regional and local governments have to make cuts; therefore a “business as usual” attitude from the EU institutions is simply not acceptable regardless of new competences bestowed on them by the Lisbon Treaty". On the other hand, the Commissioner pointed out, "it makes sense to transfer funds away from programmes that are not performing and towards priority areas such as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), youth and employment".All the figures. In the Commission’s 2013 budget proposal €62,5 billion in payments are devoted to job friendly growth in Europe, the most consistent expense, representing 46.7% of the budget. The Commission made known in a statement: "A particular effort has been made towards the Research framework Programmes (€9,0 billion, 28.1% increase on 2012), the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme, structural and cohesion funds, life long learning. Commitments for rural development, preservation and management of natural resources amount to approximately 57 billion euro, namely 40.0% of the budget. Smaller amounts are envisaged for other areas: 6.2% to the "EU as global player" (foreign affairs); administration, 5.7%; Citizenship, Freedom, Security and Justice 1.4%. "It is legitimate for people to wonder why we call for a 6.8 % increase in payments in these times of crisis", says Janusz Lewandowski. "There are two reasons for this: first, 2013 is the last year of the current financial period and the last year of each financial period always sees a sharp increase in payments as EU funded projects across Europe reach completion: bridges, railways, motorways have been built for the greater good of all, now we must pay the bills for them". Shared priorities. "Second – added Commissioner Lewandowski – in recent years the Member States within the Council and the European Parliament have adopted EU budgets that were well below our estimated needs for payments. This has led to a “snowballing effect” of unpaid bills as each year we could not honour some of our legal commitments due to shortages of funds". Italian MEP Giovanni La Via, in charge of negotiations on the part of the 2013 budget for the European Parliament said: "To emerge from the crisis I am convinced we need ‘more Europe’ and not ‘less Europe’. Therefore I am not happy. We need a stronger commitment to find ways to create growth and jobs, which – after all – are the priorities agreed by all three European institutions".