Dispute or disagreement?

Political issues surrounding the 2011 EU budget, as aptly reported by the article, were partly solved after this text had been drawn up when the European Parliament and the EU Council reached agreement on such budget. The impasse on the 2011 budget, following the failure of the negotiations of 15 November 2010, only six weeks prior to the deadline, is alarming and prompts a comment. The gravity of the situation is perceptible in the unusually vigorous reaction of José Manuel Barroso: “Some member states were not willing to negotiate in a European spirit. I regret that. Those who thought they had won a victory over ‘Brussels’ have only shot themselves in the foot. They know however that they have struck a blow at the Europeans and the developing countries”. There are three points in dispute, all interlinked: the growth of the EU budget in 2011; the proposal that the EU should generate its own income through fiscal instruments at the European level (‘own resources’) instead of relying mainly on the contribution of member states; and the role of the European Parliament in the future determination of the budget through its participation in the discussions – already begun – on the plurennial financial perspective for the period 2014-2020.First point: the increase of the budget was initially planned at 5.9%. This is widely perceived as a provocation at a time when various national budgets are having to make painful, almost intolerable cuts, but justified by the new roles assigned to the EU: the External Action Service and the supervisory commissions charged with improving economic governance. These commissions are considered to be essential precisely as a result of the economic crisis and the recent need to come to the ‘rescue’ of member states (it is already onerous and sometimes discouraging to prevent a crisis, as has been demonstrated by the recent debates on climate change). The Commissioner for the Budget, Janusz Lewandowski, has recognized the ‘dilemma’ that exists between tackling the growing responsibilities of the European Union and the self-evident need rigorously to control its costs.Second point: it is also to resolve this dilemma that the budget proposed a partial modification of the way in which the EU is financed, replacing the national contributions with a mechanism that would permit the European Union directly to raise its own funds – for example by imposing taxes on air transport or on financial transactions. But some member states strongly resist the option given to the European Union directly to impose taxes. Third point: the budgetary responsibility of the European Parliament. This is a question that causes irritation. The Lisbon Treaty makes provision for the Parliament to give its own “approval” to any decision of the Council relating to the EU’s financial perspectives. The Parliament has accepted to reduce the planned budget increase from 5.9 to 2.9% (thus responding to the first of the above three points of dispute), though at the same time stipulating some ‘conditions’, namely, that the EP be actively involved in the preparation of the next financial perspective, and not be limited merely to its a posteriori approval. This ambition, and probably the term ‘conditions’ itself, must have seemed excessive to some member states, which suspect the Parliament of always favouring the most costly options. Immediately after the failure, Herman Van Rompuy, speaking in Brussels, suggested that one of the consequences of the economic and financial crisis was that the “national” interests now coincide with those of the Union. To judge from the current difficulties, one could rather say that these interests will always be limited to a partial superimposition.