EU Commission finalises budget proposals

The European Commission yesterday published its last set of proposals for EU expenditure from 2007 to 2013.

EU budgets for this period are currently subject to a political battle between Brussels and several national governments on various issues.

Malta has its own share of objections, primarily connected to the allocation of funds under the structural and cohesion funds, insisting that it should be allocated the full Objective 1 funding.

Following the Commission's weekly meeting, President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said: "All the pieces are now in place. The Commission's blueprint for investing in Europe is complete. The full budget, which is now on the table, is financially sound, coherent and credible."

Yesterday's final proposals covered the areas of research, citizenship, freedom, security and justice, health and consumer protection and fisheries.

The full Commission proposals set EU expenditure - the "total appropriations for commitments" tally - at over the €1 trillion euros mark.

However, six net contributor member states, Austria, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, are still looking to cut EU spending commitments by about 20 per cent, to around €815 billion, to bring the figure down to one per cent of Europe's Gross National Income.

The Commission's latest spending wish list comes ahead of key negotiations next month and in June to set the EU budget, whose approval would then be the main item on the agenda of June's EU leaders' summit.

The proposals announced yesterday include a seventh Research Framework Programme worth €68 billion and new justice measures that will focus on anti-immigration border crackdowns, asylum reception, anti-terrorism, and coordination against organised crime. The budget has been set at €8.3 billion.

Sources close to the Commission told The Times that the new initiatives in the immigration sector are of direct interest to Malta in view of the calls made recently by top government officials for concrete burden-sharing measures to help in the illegal immigration crisis hitting all the southern member states.

In its proposals, the Commission said that in the area of freedom, security and justice, "it is clearly recognised that the challenges posed by immigration, asylum and the fight against crime and terrorism can no longer be met adequately by measures taken only at national level".

The commission's approach for achieving this goal is based on three framework programmes that will replace the multitude of instruments the Commission currently manages in this field.

According to the Commission proposals, the enlarged EU aims to give real substance to the concept of solidarity for the development of border checks, asylum and immigration.

The framework programme for the solidarity and management of migration flows will support national actions such as improving control efficiency at the external border of the EU while ensuring smooth crossing of the external borders by bona fide travellers, funding civic orientation courses and, more importantly for Malta, providing adequate reception conditions for persons asking for international protection in the EU as well as a fair and efficient examination of their request for asylum.

The Commission is also proposing to help in funding initiatives connected to counselling for unsuccessful asylum seekers and illegal immigrants to return with dignity to their country of origin.

The package approved by the Commission yesterday completes the other budget proposals presented last year and is the last needed for the Council and the European Parliament to reach an agreement on the next Budget.

The Commission is hoping to have an agreement between the European Parliament and all the 25 member states by June.