Clashes over plans to scale back 2013 budget
Member states seek €5 billion in cuts.
The member states of the European Union have launched a concerted effort to cut back the European Commission’s proposal for the EU’s 2013 budget. They are demanding savings of €5.2 billion from the Commission’s draft. During a first negotiating round on Monday (9 July), Vassos Shiarly, the finance minister of Cyprus, representing the member states, clashed with Janusz Lewandowski, the European commissioner for financial programming and budget, and with the European Parliament’s lead negotiators on the budget.
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Member states’ experts in the Council’s budgets working group, which is chaired by Cyprus as the current holder of the rotating presidency of the EU’s Council of Ministers, met last week (5 July). They agreed to seek cuts of €5.2bn to the Commission’s proposal, bringing it down to €132.7bn in payments. This represents an increase of 2.79% over 2012, whereas Lewandowski’s proposal, made in April, was for an increase of 6.85%. Lewandowski has argued that he needs this increase to cover commitments made in previous years, a situation that is especially acute this year, the last of the current multi-annual budget cycle. The United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Sweden voted against the Council’s proposal, saying that it did not cut the budget enough. Austria, which is sympathetic to this view, abstained.
Contradictions?
Alain Lamassoure, a centre-right French MEP who chairs the Parliament’s budgets committee, said that the Council’s proposal contradicted the decision by national leaders at their summit on 28-29 June to focus on economic growth. The Council is seeking to limit the increase over 2012 in the competitiveness sub-heading to 1.5% in payments and 1.04% in commitments; the Commission had proposed a 17.8% rise in payments.
At the same time, the member states propose an increase in the far larger sub-heading for cohesion, of 8.07% in payments and 3.3% in commitments. This represents a major victory for the ‘friends of cohesion policy’ group, led by Poland. Almost all cohesion funding flows back to the member states and is managed by national authorities.
The biggest cut in the version approved by the Council would be made to spending on foreign affairs, which it seeks to cut by 9.75% in payments and 1.17% in commitments. This includes funding for the EU’s neighbourhood policy in eastern Europe and north Africa, as well as humanitarian aid, assistance to countries seeking to join the EU, and some development aid. The member states also want to limit the increase in the EU’s administrative budget to 1.47% over 2012, less than the rate of inflation.
Working group decision
Lamassoure, who was described by one participant in Monday’s negotiations as “furious” about the Council proposal, also objected to the manner in which it had been adopted, by a working group rather than at the political level. (Member states’ ambassadors endorsed the Council version yesterday – 11 July – and it is expected to be formally adopted by national ministers later this month.) “This statement by national civil servants raises serious questions as to whom we can believe, who is in charge in the EU, who speaks for its member states, and how far we can trust even the most formal decisions taken at EU summits,” Lamassoure said. An official said that Monday’s meeting was “not a very promising start” to this year’s budget negotiations.
Lewandowski said that he was “baffled” by the Council proposal. “The Council is calling for the exact opposite of what the 27 heads of state and government of the EU agreed on barely two weeks ago,” he said.
He said that the bulk of the proposed cuts would hit “the very parts of the EU budget that are geared towards economic growth, employment and competitiveness”. “How can member states call for investments in growth and jobs one day and then cut investments in the same areas two weeks later?” he asked.
