Spending better together: analyses and recommendations

In June 2011, Notre Europe – Jacques Delors Institute launched a research project entitled “How to spend better together”. The aim of this project was to look at what we spend on aggregate terms – that is, both at the EU and national level – and to explore the potential for efficiency gains by re organising spending tasks or better coordinating national and EU spendingin selected policy areas.

As explained by the two coordinators of the project in this synthesis, the “Spending better together” publications tell us that the Community budget is only one of several factors in a broad spectrum of financial intervention methods available at the European level. They provide the reader with a broad overview of the varying degrees of budgetary integration and of the different instruments for financial intervention that exist at the European level. They also provide interesting in-depth analysis of the political and legal obstacles to “better spend” in each area of intervention, and put forward recommendations to improve the efficiency of EU and national spending in different areas of intervention (research, higher education and innovation; energy infrastructures, development aid, defence).