Denktank met EP-leden en nationale parlementariërs buigt zich over systeem van Eigen Middelen (en)

dinsdag 9 mei 2006

There was broad agreement among participants of the working group on "future resources of the European Union" that the existing own-resources system should be replaced by a scheme more understandable to the public. Whether this system should be tax-based or built on existing instruments was the subject of a lively debate, as was the nature and the objectives of the Community's budget itself.

Working group rapporteur Lord Grenfell from the UK House of Lords explained that a new form of own-resource would have to be " carefully scrutinised ", and that differences on whether it should be tax-based or not " should be aired ". Own-resources have been in the limelight since the start of the talks on the funding of the long-term spending plan of the European Union, the so-called "Financial Perspective". The own-resource system has not been reformed for almost 20 years, and many linked this with the difficulty in agreeing a new Financial Perspective for the 2007-13 period.

EU tax and the public

" An EU tax can hardly be justified to the citizens at this stage and would certainly not help the cause of the European Union," argued Christian Philip from the French National Assembly. " Any tax would have to be comprehensible by the public, " Danish Folketinget Member Svend Auken said, " and thus everyone would understand it if we took it from a share of the benefits made by oil companies ". Helga Trüpel (Greens/EFA, DE) was also in favour of an energy tax, to complement the existing own-resources system, which " wouldn't lead the people to think they pay more for the EU ".

One of the main stumbling blocks in the way of such an EU tax is the need for unanimity between national governments for a thorough EU-wide fiscal harmonisation. Spanish Senator and former MEP Carles Gasoliba doubted it was ever going to be possible to achieve unanimity in Council on such a far-reaching decision. "A tax-based system would have to be applied with a proper supra-national fiscal regime, which ensures that EU money is used transparently and managed appropriately, " said Ilias Kallioras of the Greek Parliament.

Participants were not short of imagination for new forms of funding: taxes on flights, company profits or even on short text messages sent by mobile phones. The supporter of this idea, EP own resources rapporteur Alain Lamassoure (EPP-ED, FR), also believed that the new system would have to be clearly linked with benefits drawn from the European Union. Thanks to the internal market " exchanges between countries have ballooned, so everyone would understand that the money to finance the EU should come from the benefits engendered by the EU," he explained.

The nature of the budget

Richard Corbett (PES, UK) felt that the need to find a new way to fund the EU depended on a visible identification of the Community's return on investment: " If the level of resources is raised, then the added-value must be clear for everyone, " he said. Others believed that increasing the means given to the EU would inevitably " annoy some people " within the Member States: German Bundesrat Member Rainer Speer stressed that " Member States were already boosting funding for research or Lisbon Agenda-related goals " and that " everyone's role should be clear ".

Lord Grenfell recalled that the nature of the budget will be up for scrutiny in 2008-09, when the revision of all revenue and spending will be considered (as agreed by governments during the December 2005 summit), " including the UK abatement and the CAP ". Most speakers recognised that more resources would force a change in the nature of the EU budget, but fellow working group rapporteur Gunter Stumvoll, of the Austrian Nationalrat, wrapped up the debate by saying that " any reform would be hard to agree at Council level, so the effort to find a consensus should not be undermined".

EP President Josep Borrell indicated in his introduction to this two-day conference that a failure to look into the own resources system would lead to a situation where " no agreement will be found on the Financial Perspective after 2014 ".

The own resources system was created in 1970 to finance the EU budget and consists of four main instruments: funds from VAT, customs duties, agricultural levies and contributions from Member States, the so-called "Gross National Income resource", calculated according to their wealth. Over time, the GNI resource has grown to represent the main source of funding of the EU, with a direct impact on deficit-threatened national budgets. 

08/05/2006

Joint Parliamentary meeting on the Future of Europe

Working group on the "future financial resources of the Union"

 

REF.: 20060503IPR07844

.