Europe for Growth : Towards a radical change in financing the EU

The budget of the European Union amounts to around 1% of the EU gross national income (GNI), a size that has remained modest and stable over the last decade, even though the scope of its activities has grown ever wider during the same period. For 2011, it is set at €126.5 billion in payments (€141 billion in commitments).

And yet, year after year, the negotiation of the annual budget by the two arms of the budgetary authority proves to be extremely difficult. Every year, during the budgetary procedure, the Council adopts an accountantlike approach and makes horizontal cuts to the draft budget proposed by the Commission, thus contesting the very financial programming it agreed to when setting the multiannual financial framework.

Even more strangely, this does not dissuade the European Council from making public commitments, with potential additional financial implications. But when the time comes to implement them, these promises fail to receive the necessary financial backing from the same member states.