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).