Friday, 25 September 2009
This week, the EU commission has released the “Annual Account of the European Communities” which shows spending from the 2008 EU budget. According to the report, nearly all of the EU budget funds (€105bn) were directly spent in the EU zone and 40 % of the budget (€116.5 billion) was invested in areas related to jobs, growth and competitiveness.
The EU Commissioner for Financial Programming and Budget, Algirdas Šemeta, points out that, "2008's top spending areas in research, innovation and training for people to join the workforce are helping Europe move towards recovery. My priority today is to shorten the route and speed up the journey-time of these EU funds to their final destination but much also depends on Member States, who need to do all they can to take up EU money fast and ensure quality spending."
There was not a huge change in spending related to the major policy
areas, agriculture and cohesion, when the 2008 budget is compared to the 2007 budget. The French are still net receivers from the agriculture support (€10bn) while Greece took the biggest slice from the cohesion funds (€4.7bn) and were also the net receiver of the 2008 EU budget (almost €6.3bn). Germany is the biggest contributor with €8.8 bn.
In the EU system, the annual spending plans are negotiated between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers on the basis of a proposal by the Commission.
Yilmaz KAPLAN (JTW)
