News

On 3 April, at the initiative of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania, consultations of the Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and German Ministries of Foreign Affairs regarding the review of the European Union budget were organized.

During the consultations, Lithuanian diplomats presented Lithuania’s position adopted by the Lithuanian government on 31 March. This position stresses that the EU budget should be oriented towards the areas that generate the highest added value and that the allocation of financial resources should not distort competition. It was also stressed that the principle of coherence among the EU policies should be applied and that the budget should serve to enhance the economic, social and territorial cohesion and to increase the solidarity of member states. Lithuania has an opinion that the EU budget should be modern and should react flexibly to emerging new challenges.

‘Lithuania distinguishes three main priorities that should be taken into account when deciding on the future EU policies : competitiveness, solidarity and security ’ Director of the EU Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Vidmantas Purlys said.

It is important for Lithuania that in the future EU budget special attention should be devoted to research and development, innovations, implementation of aims of a Common EU energy policy and creation of a fully integrated internal EU energy market, continuity of a cohesion policy, maintenance of a Common Agricultural Policy and reduction of inequalitiesin agricultural development, protection of the EU external border, formation of the migration policy, and the European Neighbourhood Policy.

“Lithuania suggests that the EU budget should be financed from the Gross National Income (GNI) of member states, refusing VAT  (value added tax) based resource. We also speak against various corrections to the EU own resources system or the ideas regarding additional EU taxes,” Mr Purlys stressed.

Participants of the consultations partly approved of Lithuania’s position. However, they also highlighted other important principles of formation of the EU budget, such as subsidiarity, transparency, equity, and effective use of funds. The latter would allow allocating the saved funds for the financing of new EU challenges and new policies.

EU budget review was planned in December 2005 by the European Council, which obligated the European Commission to submit an official proposal concerning the aforementioned matter by the end of 2008 or the beginning of 2009. The review of the EU budget should primarily be focused on the review of a long-term structure of the EU budget and principles of planning income and expenditures.