EU seeks "wealth tax" to finance itself, ending British rebate and UK control over Brussels budget
Posted, March 26, 2007 @ 16:00
Effort to give EU its 'own resources' would end the annual and seven-year budget haggle, Conservatives warn
Brussels, 26th March 2007 -- The European Parliament is expected this week to call for the EU to be given fixed financing based on a proportion of Europe's wealth, in a move that would end the EU's reliance on, and accountability to, national governments for the bloc's financing, Richard Ashworth, Conservative budgets spokesman in the European Parliament, warned today.
A report drafted by Alain Lamassoure MEP - Nicolas Sarkozy’s influential adviser on Europe - is calling for the EU's Gross National Income element of the budget to become the significant source of funding, and an 'own resource' in itself. This would effectively make EU funding from the member states a right, rather than a gift haggled over at the annual budget round, and in the seven-year debate over the so-called 'Financial Perspectives'.
Mr Ashworth says the report is significant because the Portuguese, who take over the EU's Presidency in June, will be completely reviewing the way the EU is financed and the report also gives a strong indication of the approach a Sarkozy Presidency would take towards the EU's budget.
Conservatives will vote against the report, which also intends to totally abolish the UK rebate by 2013. This is an unbalanced approach, considering that there are now five nations receiving abatements in differing forms, and 40 different support mechanisms for member states. The report does suggest proposals for reform of the Common Agriculture Policy, but this is to be dealt with shortly as part of the EU's fundamental review of spending - the 'health check' - in 2008. Mr Ashworth said the whole system of funding the EU needs to be far more flexible in a European Union of 27 countries, than in the old EC or Coal and Steel Community.
He said:
"There is a growing consensus that the EU should receive funding as a right, rather than having to ask member states for it every seven years. This is a dangerous precedent and it sends the signal that the EU is the master of the national governments, rather than the servant of them.
"To say that a percentage of all Gross National Income belongs to the EU by right would do nothing to drive down costs. We should ensure the EU spends less of our money, but spends it more effectively. It is totally right that national governments set both the priorities of the EU, and allocate the funding that will deliver those priorities.
"We do need more transparency surrounding the EU's budget. The convoluted way the EU agrees its funding would confuse a Professor, so how do we expect the man in the street to understand it?
"The way we fund the European Union needs to be reassessed and dragged into the 21st century. The processes currently in place are better suited to serve an EU of just a few nations, rather than a bloc of 27. Lamassoure's approach is not one we would agree with, but Conservatives do believe we need to have this debate as a matter of some urgency."