Parliament committee to study EU spending

MEPs given 12 months ‘to define the Parliament’s political priorities’.

The European Parliament today set up a 50-member committee to study spending priorities for the European Union after its current 2007-13 financial programme.

Jutta Haug, a German centre-right MEP and vice-chair of the budgets committee, is expected to become chair of the committee at its inaugural meeting during the Parliament’s next Strasbourg meeting, on 5-8 July.

The committee has been given 12 months “to define the Parliament’s political priorities”  for the so-called multi-annual financial framework. It is to look at how many years the new spending plan should last and issue guidelines on how to allocate EU funds.

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The committee’s work is likely to spark renewed debate over the size of the EU budget in years ahead, whether the EU should levy its own taxes, and whether cherished programmes such as the Common Agricultural Policy should be scaled back or renationalised.

Many member states that have passed deep budget cuts at home are also looking to cut their contributions to the EU budget.

The committee is to present a final report to the Parliament before the European Commission presents its proposal on the new EU spending programme, which is expected in July 2011.

Janusz Lewandowski, the European commissioner for financial planning and budget, is expected to present only a short review of the current 2007-13 financial framework in September, to avoid starting an early feud between member states and the Parliament.

MEPs in the budgets committee will on Monday (21 June) look at how to reach agreement with the Council of Ministers and the Commission on amending the EU’s financial regulation and the so-called Inter-institutional Agreement to take account of the Parliament’s new budgetary powers, as well as setting up the new European External Action Service.