Tag: eu budget

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Rethinking EU budget spending on agriculture in the next MFF

This post reproduces my key-note statement to the session More efficient use of scarce financial resources – An efficient Common Agriculture Policy and focussed structural Funds at the European Political Strategy Centre High Level Conference ‘Shaping our Future: Designing the next Multiannual Financial Framework’ which was held 8-9 January 2018 in Brussels. The delivered version was slightly abbreviated for time reasons.

The session was intended to reflect on more efficient use of scarce financial resources in the EU budget’s two largest spending categories – agricultural policy and structural funds. I expected my fellow panellists to have a lot to say about structural funds, so my presentation focused on agricultural policy.… Read the rest

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Another look at the possible Brexit implications for the CAP budget

Preparations within the Commission for its next MFF proposal, which is now expected in May next year, are well under way. Thinking on the shape of the next MFF began in January last year with the Dutch Presidency Conference on preparing for the next MFF. In December 2016 the High Level Group on the Future Finances of the EU produced its final report and recommendations for a reform of the own resources side of the MFF. In June 2017, the Commission produced its Reflections Paper on the Future of EU Finances. This was one of a series of Reflection Papers published by the Commission in the wake of its White Paper on the Future of Europe published in March 2017.… Read the rest

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Preparing for the MFF Mid-Term Review

The EU budget is under increasing pressure in the face of both new and unexpected expenditure demands. Already, in the first two years of this Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) period 2014-2020, virtually all of the flexibility instruments which were put in place have been fully utilised, in part to fund the incoming Commission’s flagship project for a European Fund for Strategic Investments, and in part in response to the large number of arrivals of asylum-seekers, refugees and migrants as well as the terrorist attacks in Europe. In total, around €12 billion has so far been mobilised under the various flexibility instruments, leading one commentator to observe that “the EU budget had been flexed to the maximum”.… Read the rest

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Commitments to rural development spending 76% below forecast in 2014

The publication by the Commission of its second Draft Amending Budget (DAB No.2) to the EU’s 2015 budget this week reveals in stark figures the extent of the hiatus in CAP rural development spending caused by the delays in passing the relevant legislation and in approving rural development programmes. I first highlighted how approval of rural development programmes was falling way behind schedule in this post; the Commission’s budget figures now allow us to quantify the extent of the damage.
The delays do not affect only rural development programmes but all programmes under the European Structural and Investment Funds, the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and the Internal Security Fund.… Read the rest

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MFF negotiations blown off course as European Parliament plays poker

Last week (Monday 22 April) the General Affairs Council (GAC) gave ‘guidance’ to the Irish Presidency for the negotiations with the European Parliament on concluding the MFF negotiations. The Irish Presidency’s objective is to reach agreement with the Parliament on the MFF by the end of June and to translate the overall MFF agreement into legal texts.
According to the conclusions of the meeting:

Ministers supported the presidency’s efforts to find a compromise with the European Parliament on the next MFF in a timely manner. Ministers expressed their willingness to discuss the four key elements of the European Parliament’s resolution (flexibility, revision, own resources and unity of the budget).

… Read the rest
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How close is the EU to agreement on spending one trillion euro?

The negotiations on the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework (MFF) are critical to the current CAP reform process. These negotiations will determine the size of the financial envelope as well as many of the key parameters which will decide the future shape of the CAP.

I have previously commented on the slow progress of the MFF negotiations (see here and here). In principle, these negotiations need to be completed under the Cypriot Presidency by the end of this year, to allow the negotiations on the future CAP regulations to be completed under the Irish Presidency in the first half of next year, so that the necessary supplemental legislation as well as member state rural programmes can be passed and approved by the end of 2013.… Read the rest

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Agricultural consequences of the eurozone crisis

The consequences of the decisions at the fateful Brussels summit on 9 December 2011 will take time to assess. Whether leaders did enough to calm the markets and allow eurozone governments to refinance their enormous debts next year at reasonable interest rates will be known relatively quickly. Many commentators feel that financial markets will not be impressed, and that the EU is facing into a prolonged depression in which the break-up of the eurozone is a real possibility.

The significance of the institutional changes implied by the creation of a new inner core of EU member states pledged to achieve greater fiscal integration will only be known over a longer time span.… Read the rest

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EU budget review cautious on future spending priorities

The Commission has published its long-delayed budget review which follows a public consultation on the EU budget which began as a mid-term budget review in 2008-09. An earlier version leaked last year, and apparently drafted by Commission President Barroso’s advisers (see Jack Thurston’s post on this), recommended specific targets for the reallocation of EU spending, including a reduction in agricultural spending to around one-third of the budget.

The review published today is a more anodyne document, and it shies away from making specific recommendations on which expenditure areas might see their budgets cut. In this it closely resembles the leaked document on CAP reform put into the public domain earlier this month and which also summarises the conclusions of a public consultation.… Read the rest

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The future of direct payments

As Valentin’s blog post yesterday explains, the CAP is not only a European agriculture policy, it’s a European income redistribution policy. The centrepiece of the CAP is the €42 billion a year in ‘direct aids’ or income support to farmers, funded entirely from the pooled EU budget. Valentin points out that in an era of fiscal austerity, the idea of billions of euros moving from one country’s taxpayers to another country’s farmers is likely to be politically controversial. Particularly when the biggest payouts go to Europe’s wealthiest citizens and most profitable companies.

As national governments decide by how much they are going to pay of nurses and school teachers, how many university places they will cut and which taxes they are going to have to increase, the idea that aids to farmers are ringfenced from cuts will come as a surprise to many.… Read the rest