In 2008, for the first time ever, the largest share of the EU budget – 45% of all EU spending will go on measures to boost economic growth and greater cohesion in the EU-27. The move to spend more on competitiveness reflects Europe’s commitment to prosper in a constantly evolving global economy, while ensuring stable support for farming. Agriculture will continue to receive over 40% of EU cash.
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In 2008, the EU budget will allocate EUR 11.1 billion (+18.3% from 2007) to boost the Union’s competitiveness and EUR 46.9 billion (+3.1%) to foster prosperity and economic cohesion across Europe’s regions.
Of the EUR 11.1 billion earmarked for competitiveness, EUR 6.1 billion will go to research (+11%), EUR 1.9 billion to energy and transport networks (+92.5%) and EUR 1 billion to education and training (+9.3%). Several programmes under competitiveness will provide a total of EUR 940 million to the EU’s satellite navigation system Galileo for its start-up phase.
Out of the EUR 46.9 billion intended to foster regional growth and employment, EUR 37 billion (+5.2%) under the ‘Convergence’ objective will strengthen local development potential in less prosperous regions. The regions not covered by the Convergence objective will receive EUR 8.6 billion (-5.1%) under the ‘Regional competitiveness and employment’ objective. An additional EUR 1.2 billion will be spent from the ‘Territorial cooperation objective’, mainly to build cross-border cooperation networks and disseminate best practices.
The 2008 commitments for natural resources will also reflect the changes in the Union’s spending priorities. As a result of recent reforms in European agriculture, the allocations for market expenditure and direct aids will decrease by 3.4% in comparison to 2007 and will amount to EUR 40.9 billion. This decrease is partly offset by increases in the commitments for rural development (+4.5%) and the environment (+12.0%). This will see EUR 267 million go to the EU’s environmental protection programme LIFE+ and EUR 12.9 billion for rural development.
The EU budget’s highest spending lines cross in 2008
for Growth & Jobs
for Agriculture
Competitiveness & Cohesion
Direct aid, market related exp., rural development, etc.
The EU support in the field of freedom, security and justice will grow by 16.7% to reach a total of EUR 0.7 billion. Next year will see over 390 million – an increase of 24% – for programmes to manage migration flows. The allocations for Citizenship, which covers EU programmes such as Culture, Youth, Consumer Protection and Public health, will show an increase of 14.7% and amount to some EUR 0.6 billion.
Pre-accession aid for the candidate countries and potential candidates in the Western Balkans will increase by 14.0% to reach EUR 1.4 billion in 2008. The EU assistance to the neighbouring countries to east and south will also increase to reach EUR 1.6 billion (+10.2%), of which EUR 300 million will help Palestinian institutions to provide better services and address urgent needs. For all other developing regions (ACP, Asia and Latin America), the EU budget will commit EUR 2.3 billion (+3.3%).
Partly due to the extra support for the European Security and Defence Policy operation in Kosovo, the Common foreign and security policy will increase considerably by 79.2% to reach 0.3 billion. The EU’s humanitarian efforts will receive some EUR 0.8 billion (+3.1%), while the funds for democracy and human rights will amount to EUR 0.1 billion (+4.7%).
The administrative costs of all EU institutions will amount to EUR 7.3 billion, corresponding to 6% of the total commitments in the budget. Enlargement from 15 to 27 Member States, as well as the increase from 11 official languages in 2003 to 23 in 2007 and the management of a larger spending volume over the period 2007-2013 have been important factors influencing the workload and staffing requirements of the institutions.
As agreed in the accession treaties, Bulgaria and Romania will receive EUR 0.2 billion as to new Member States to ensure that they retain a positive budgetary balance during the first years of accession.
