The Böge report, approved today by the EU Parliament (440 votes for, 14 votes against, 14 abstentions), which gives the go-ahead to the Economic and Financial Prospects for 2007/2013, highlights a few financial deficiencies, welcomes "the 4 billion extra euros allocated to the priority programs" and insists that "what had been submitted by Parliament would have made for a better funding of the EU policies", especially funds for the new member states, culture, the Lisbon Strategy (economic competitiveness). The EU Parliament then took a vote on another report, drawn up by the Portuguese delegate Sérgio Sousa Pinto, which supports the decision taken by the EU for "a wide, exhaustive revision of all the aspects of common expenses and resources". The focus of attention are the budget "revenues", the excessively high expenses for the farming industry (over 40% of the total budget), the financial "discount" that the United Kingdom benefits from, a different sharing out of the investments. The EU Parliament aims at a future "global" financial system, "which shall be fair, generous, progressive and transparent", able to give the EU the "possibility of balancing its ambitions with its own resources rather than with the contributions of the member states", so as to make the EU policies and institutions more independent and authoritative.” “
