THE EUROPEAN Commission, now into the second year of its five-year mandate, has urged all EU institutions and its own organisation to follow the sparing budget policies of its member states.
As the executive led by José Manuel Barroso completed its first year in office, budget commissioner Janusz Lewandowski urged the heads of 10 EU bodies to exercise restraint in their financial planning.
“The European institutions cannot ignore the broader economic and budgetary context and must undertake all possible efforts to make the best use of their administrative resources,” he said in a letter.
Although the EU’s administration budget rose 3.5 per cent this year on the back of a 2.91 per cent increase in the union’s overall budget, Mr Lewandowski said he wanted keep the administration increase next year “to a percentage below 1 per cent”.
This is a controversial area. With member states throughout the union cutting expenditure and increasing taxes, governments responded badly last year when the Commission and the European Parliament originally sought a 5.9 per cent increase in the EU’s overall budget for 2011.
The breakdown in budget talks last November before the final settlement was reached set the scene for a difficult renegotiation of the EU’s new budget from 2014.
Sources briefed on preparations for these talks say it will be exceptionally difficult to reach agreement, given huge pressure on member state budgets and disputes over expenditure on policies such as agriculture.
Mr Lewandowski, although he did not address that matter in his letter, said all EU institutions should take steps to limit their expenditure. “That would send a positive signal to the European public opinion, demonstrating that the European institutions are acting responsibly in the light of the difficult economic and budgetary conditions.”
With European affairs still dominated by the battle against the sovereign debt crisis, the first anniversary of the parliament’s ratification of Mr Barroso’s second Commission passed with little fuss yesterday.
But Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the liberal group in the European Parliament, wrote in a letter to Mr Barroso that he should resist the slide towards “inter-governmentalism” along the lines of the ongoing Franco-German push for an EU competitiveness pact. Mr Verhofstadt said the Commission was the “only guarantor” of impartiality in this scenario.
Science and innovation commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn said she has tried to listen and learn during her first year in office. “I have listened to researchers and scientists, to universities, to chief executives and to SMEs. I have listened to Ministers and MEPs, as well as our international partners, notably the US. I have listened to think-tanks like Bruegel and the Lisbon Council,” she said.
A Brussels-based lobbying firm, Burson-Marsteller, said in an assessment that the Commission’s performance was “average” both in terms of performance and of meeting commitments made.