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The EU's new budget blueprint in figures

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Published 23 November 2012
15 comments
Tags
agricultural subsidies, cohesion funds, EU budget 2014-2020

EXCLUSIVE / The differences between the initial proposal for the EU's long-term budget (2014-2020), made by European Council President Herman Van Rompuy last week, and the new version he gave to EU heads of state and government last night, reveal the impact of the bilateral “confessions” held yesterday.

According to the copy of the EU budget proposal, obtained by EurActiv, several budget headings have been seriously slashed, others have been increased, the overall total level of the budget remains capped at €973 billion, or 1.01% of EU’s Gross National Income (GNI).

Sub-heading 1a “Competitiveness for growth and jobs” appears to be one of the biggest victims of the changes. The total level of commitments is now put at €152,543 billion, down from €152,652 in the previous proposal.

In particular, the ‘Connecting Europe Facility’ (CFE) is slashed from €46,249 billion to €41,249 billion.

The three sectors of have been reduced respectively as follows:

  • transport from €29,660 billion to €26,948 billion;
  • energy from €8,266 billion to €7,126 billion;
  • telecommunications from €8,323 billion to €7,175 billion.

Two of the three large infrastructure programmes also suffer cuts:

  • Galileo is from €6,645 billion to €6,3 billion;
  • GMES from€ 4,941 to €3,786 billion.
  • ITER stays unchanged at €2,707 billion.

However, the sums allocated for nuclear decommissioning for the three nuclear centrals in Lithuania, Slovakia and Bulgaria which had to shut down reactors as part of their accession treaties are now increased:

  • Lithuania is to get for Ignalina €400 million, up from €210 in the older proposal;
  • Slovakia will get €200 million for Bohunice, up from €105 million;
  • And Bulgaria will obtain, according to the proposal, €260 million for Kozloduy, up from €185 million in the first Van Rompuy proposal.

Cohesion goes up

On Cohesion, the level of commitments is significantly increased, from €309,495 in the old proposal, to €320,148 million, but the poorer regions are not the only beneficiaries.

Resources for the “Investment for growth and Jobs” are now put at €311,420 billion, up from the older figure of €299,681 billion.

In this figure, the sub-division is as follows:

  • A total of €161,427 billion for less developed regions, up from €156,131 billion;
  • €31,393 billion for transition regions, up from 29,187 billion;
  • €50,872 billion for more developed regions, up from 47,505 billion;
  • €66,341 billion for member countries supported by the Cohesion Fund, up from €65,928.
  • €1,387 billion for the outermost regions, up from €925 million.

However, the figures for “European territorial cooperation” have gone down, from €9,814 million in the older proposal, to €8,728 billion in yesterday’s proposal.

An important change is the capping figure of cohesion funding to the least developed regions and member countries. The figure is now at 2.35%, down from 2.4% of GDP. Although the change may appear small, it amounts to many billion euro less revenue for the poorest regions and countries in total.

Special provisions

New paragraphs have appeared, favouring various regions in some member countries.

  • The more developed regions of Greece shall be allocated an additional envelope of 1 billion under the Structural funds;
  • The more developed regions of Portugal shall also been allocated €1 billion extra, of which €100 million for Madeira;
  • Spain shall be allocated an additional €2.75 billion. In addition, Spanish territories across the Mediterranean Ceuta and Melilla will receive €50 million extra;
  • The French outermost region of Mayotte will receive €200 million;
  • The Hungarian region of Kozep-Magyaroszag shall be allocated an additional €1,2 billion;
  • The less developed regions of Italy shall be allocated an additional €1 billion;
  • Malta and Cyprus will receive €200 million and €150 million respectively.

Agriculture also wins

Commitment appropriations for the heading “Sustainable growth: Natural resources”, which covers agriculture, rural development, fisheries and a financial instrument for the environment and climate action, are now offered €372,229 billion, up from the older proposal of €364,472 billion. Of this amount, €277,852 will be allocated to market related expenditure and direct payments. The older figure was of €269,852 billion.

Changes have been introduced to accommodate the differences between the level of direct payments to agricultural producers between older and newer members. “All member states should attain at least the level of 196 per hectare in current prices by the end of 2020," the new version reads.

And the victims…

Heading 3 – “Security and citizenship” is slashed down at €16.685 billion, compared to €18,309 billion in the former proposal. Heading 4 “Global Europe” suffers a severe cut, from €65,650 billion proposed initially, to €60,667 billion. The figure for the Heading 5 “Administration” stays the same at €62,629 billion, but a number of additional provisions added in the new proposal were translated by a Council official as a cut by 7% of the salaries of staff in EU institutions.

The text concerning the rebates remain unchanged. In addition to the UK, Germany will receive an annual check of €2.8 billion, The Netherlands €1.15 billion and Sweden €325 million.

EurActiv.com

COMMENTS

  • The further cuts to heading 4 are extremely worrying. When are EU leaders going to start listening – EU aid works, and EU citizens support it. Member states are wielding veto threats in a bid to make sure their demands are met but there are millions of people in developing countries who are struggling just to survive. What about their interests? We can’t simply sit back and watch the EU turn its back on those most in need. The European Parliament and European Commission realise this, so why are member states still insisting on massive cuts to lifesaving EU aid?

    By :
    Louise Hagendijk
    - Posted on :
    23/11/2012

  • It means that they will also cut those salaries of the EU institutions' staff that have already been cut, starting with 2004, by 30-50%. Since they are at adding cuts and clarifications in there, shouldn't they make at least a distinction between staff that has been under the austerity already for the last 8 years and the other staff, that has not?

    By :
    Olga Mary
    - Posted on :
    23/11/2012

  • Research doesn't figure as specific heading. But our calculations show that
    Horizon 2020, etc. would suffer from cuts of about 12% (i.e. if you take away CFE and the big infrastructures from heading 1a). It's really disturbing that the EU heads of state or government do not recognise the importance of future-oriented spending.

    A movement of almost 150'000 people says no to cut on research.
    Sign and invite your friends to join!

    http://www.no-cuts-on-research.eu

    By :
    Initiative for Science in Europe
    - Posted on :
    23/11/2012

  • Louise, there are now millions of people in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and God knows where else in the EU who are struggling to survive. In the UK, we are incensed at British aid given to countries who don't need it (India, China et al) and/or foreign dictators (Rwanda and elswhere). These budget figures are basically the same figures being shuffled around. I have no confidence in such vast sums being managed by the EC - it didn't do Greece any good and look who's paying for that literally, now. The budget needs totally to be reformed - targetting cohesion funds at the poorer members of the EU but cutting out the nonsenese of Brussels managing 27 states' monies and charging for that. Addiitionally, I want to see EU institutions (EC, EP etc) providing a lead in the age of austerity,. They are not immune or above such cuts. They are our SERVANTS not our MASTERS!!!

    By :
    Don Latuske
    - Posted on :
    23/11/2012

  • Dear Louise,

    The EU has to right to give our money away on vanity aid projects. If we give it away, its our choice, its our money to give away or invest. The EU is giving our money away to our competitors who will come along & undercut our own industry. The UK has never received one single red penny from the EU & yet we have Subsidy Junkies which cannot cut themselves from the umbilical cord of aid. It all has to stop all subsidies should be brought to an end they dont work they just create bubbles that go pop.

    By :
    Joe Thorpe
    - Posted on :
    23/11/2012

  • The Horizon2020 is a vanity fair. It will continue senseless expensive framework programmes, scarce of any kind of results.

    By :
    Violetta
    - Posted on :
    23/11/2012

  • In times of austerity, I would think the logical move would be to look at the bigger picture and invest in projects that can be beneficial at European level. I would rather increase the EU budget - the money are anyway going back to the EU member states, but with the added value of doing something that benefits more than one country!

    By :
    Cris
    - Posted on :
    23/11/2012

  • All the countries that have had major infrastructure investment like Ireland, Spain, Greece etc have collapsed & are leaching from the net contributors ever more. The best people to invest money are those that have it not a socialist equalisation quango like the EU which just makes rich countries poorer while making the poor countries even bigger subsidy junkies than they were when they started life in the European Union. They joined the EU to trade not to live off benefits. What would the UK do with €70 billion over the next 7 years from the EU instead of handing over €70 billion? (€140 billion turnaround)The economy wouldn't implode under the weight of the handouts that's a fact.

    By :
    Joe Thorpe
    - Posted on :
    23/11/2012

  • The percentage of the EU budget set aside for overseas aid is very small. I'm not proposing funds are taken from other areas, but I don't want to see it cut for the sake of compromise over "bigger" issues backed by particular member states. These aren't vanity aid projects, but about ensuring people have access to basic rights and services. It does achieve results - 9 million kids to school, 5.5 vaccinated against disease, 31 million connected to safe drinking water in 6 years - and it has been ranked well in terms of effectiveness and transparency (including by DfID). In terms of the payback of EU aid, a recent report by the Overseas Development Institute found that it could lead to a net gain for the EU of 11.5bn between 2014-2020. This isn't money down the drain.
    In principle I'm not against phasing out aid to middle income countries such as India, but the way this withdrawal is managed is important - the majority of the world's poor live in middle income countries, and any phase out of aid must be gradual to ensure the poorest people in these countries don't suffer as a result.

    By :
    Louise Hagendijk
    - Posted on :
    24/11/2012

  • Mr.Joe Thorpe,
    What about the money which UK and other Western European countries have been hooked up to receive from the EU drip and the Marshall plan after 1945 when you and Chirchill sold Eastern Europe to the Soviet Block / without asking nobody's permission /. So, you should be paying East and Central Europe compensations in €400 trillions on a week for loosing 60 years from their economic development due to your rotten policies, while you "have been integrating" yourselves with former colonies from Africa and Asia as cheap labour. Let them represent you now and destroy your civilisation values.
    The fact that people in the East Europe are better qualified and educated to take jobs, more efficient in their work, makes you junky countries. So, learn to live with this new reality and competition.

    By :
    Austerity
    - Posted on :
    25/11/2012

  • The Marshall plan? how did that benefit the UK? We had to rebuild ourselves no one gave us any cheap loans & subsidies & all the money we borrowed to stop Germany taking over your continent had to be paid back by us it took us until the Thatcher government to repay our war debt! & you think we were a part of the breaking up of East & West Europe? We had little or no influence we were a broken country from the war, we were there for the photo's as Roosevelt & Stalin split the spoils, maybe from your tone you'd have preferred we hadn't entered the war? after all Mussolini & Hitler were such sociable folk to have ruling the first EU. What the UK did do was get up off its knees & rebuild itself without the drip feed of free money from its neighbours which is exactly what Poland should do & stop whinging to us about how they want want want all the time. WE have never had one brown penny from the EU not one in all the 40 years that we have been in it we have been a net contributor because were outnumbered by the subsidy junkies!

    By :
    Joe Thorpe
    - Posted on :
    25/11/2012

  • Whoa there, Louise!! hell would freeze over before I would ever see children, in particular suffer. But when do we start to see these countries take tresponsibility fopr their own citizens? I am getting sick to death of seeing the UK and many, many other countries sending aid to the so-called developing world where I see no self-improvements happening. Enough is enough, after most of my adult life (and I am, God help me, 60 years old) thesame old message from the same old recipients. If they haven't sorted tehmselves out by now, they never will. I believe in evolution - let the strongest survive and the weakest go to the wall. Otherwise, lessons of huma nity and politics will never be learned.

    By :
    Don Latuske
    - Posted on :
    25/11/2012

  • When I read the comments I find such large amount of nonsense in each direction it is nerving. Can pro and against people at least check their views, please. One said the EU never spend a penny to Britain. Go to Wales, go to Merseyside, ask Manchester, check around. You will actually find at regional level authorities a quite different view. By the way, historically, the forst regional policy was invented when the UK joined as it the poorest of the then European Community to help it. Later the rebate was created because on balance the UK still paid more in relation to its then 'lower wealth' to what it got due to the CAP. Funny how things change, isn't it. The EU budget rules on finance are comparatively draconian compared to national programmes, and failures at NATIONAL level (EU or outside) are today the main cause of 'waste'. That affects UK aid or EU aid. EU aid makes sense in the sense of avoidance of competing national aid programmes... and can in total be cheaper and more effective at least in theory. I do not think EU actions are less effective than national ones, the implementers are in the end often the same agencies.

    By :
    jorge Nunez Ferrer
    - Posted on :
    27/11/2012

  • The money spent in Wales, Merseyside or wherever is our money, its not "EU" money they dont have money they get it from Donors & we are the 2nd biggest donor country. We have never been a "NET" recipient of EU funds in the nearly 40 years we have been a part of this Socialist Experiment at bringing every country down to the lowest common denominator. So please dont preach this tripe that the EU is spending their money in the regions of the UK. If we didnt give £7+ billion to the eu £50 Million a day we could fund a lot more schemes around the country. We could build new schools every day a new hospital every week a new state of the art shopping centre every week. We could build 10 more O2's (Millennium Domes) ten more Wembley Stadiums build 5 more Aircraft carriers with Planes & have half of our industry working flat out & this would be every year but no we send that money to the EU to subsidise the countries that are addicted to the drip feed of subsidies. An economy the size of Spain is living on subsidies, dont you think they get enough private money from the UK with all the apartments & villas UK citizens have bought? CAP subsidises farmers in the EU & in so doing it puts farmers who are much more efficent around the globe out of business. The UK is a trading nation but we are ties with a ball & chain to the EU & expensive food & goods. Better we have a free trade arrangement with India & China, Australia, New Zealand & Canada rather than the likes of Italy & France & then we would see a drop in the cost of our weekly shop.

    By :
    Joe Thorpe
    - Posted on :
    27/11/2012

EurActiv reserves its right to remove comments regarded as offensive, racist, or homophobic as well as hate-speech in general. Spamming or posts with an obvious commercial character will be removed as well. Thank you for your understanding.

Background: 

The European Commission presented on 29 June 2011 its proposals for the EU's 2014-2020 budget – the so-called Multi-annual Financial Framework.

The Commission proposed raising the next budget to €1.025 trillion, up from the current €976 billion. This represents a 4.8% increase, which is beyond the average 2% inflation recorded in the last decade.

The European Parliament declared in a resolution on 23 October that even the original Commission proposal for freezing the budget at the 2013 level would not be sufficient to finance existing policy priorities in the "Europe 2020" strategy, which comprises the new tasks laid down in the Lisbon Treaty. 

The goal of the Cypriot presidency is to reach an agreement by the end of 2012, in line with the European Council conclusions of June 2012 [more].

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