EU Settles on Budget for 2007-2013
By BROOKS TIGNER, BRUSSELS
Though far lower than desired by its executive branch, the European Union finally has a multi-year budget. Hammered out by the EU’s 25 national leaders after an exhausting two-day summit here Dec. 15-16, the new budget substantially reinforces the union’s resources for security and peacekeeping missions next year and beyond, said EU officials.
Finalized in the early hours of Dec. 17, the seven-year budget — covering 2007-2013 — includes an agreement to raise the EU’s external-action budget for security-oriented missions from 62 million euros in 2005 to 102 million euros in 2006.
“This is a substantial increase and that is good news because we face a lot of international security challenges in 2006,” Gregor Woschnagg, Austria’s ambassador to the EU, told EU diplomats, officials and reporters attending a conference here Dec. 19. “The EU has got to quickly improve its crisis management response mechanisms, map out a security strategy for the Balkans and work with Sudan and the rest of Africa to improve that continent’s stability,” he said.
Thanks to some wily brokering by Germany’s newly elected Chancellor Angela Merkel, attending her first European summit, Britain was persuaded to accept a larger budget than it wanted: 862.3 billion euros, or 1.045 percent of the EU gross national income (GNI), versus the 1.03 percent of GNI that London preferred. Britain holds the EU’s rotating six-month presidency until Dec. 31, when Austria takes over.
“A big obstacle has been removed,” said Merkel after the horse-trading finally produced a compromise figure. “Now the EU can concentrate on other questions such as the role of EU in the world and the challenges of globalization.”
The leaders’ new budget will allocate 50 billion euros to the EU foreign and humanitarian aid policies during the seven-year period. Justice and interior policy, which includes the EU’s anti-terrorism program, will get 10.2 billion euros. The balance goes to economic growth and employment initiatives, agricultural subsidies, regional and rural development and the costs of administration.
The EU leaders agreed to come back to the budget for a mid-point review in 2008 or 2009. Their financial compromise was a slap in the face to the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, as well as the European Parliament, both of which called for at least 100 billion euros more in the budget.
The EU leaders now face a hostile parliament, which has co-decisional powers with their national governments in defining the many separate sub-categories in the EU’s new overall budget envelope. “We face a parliament bristling for a fight,” Woschnagg admitted.