EURODIALOGUE
Journal of International Relations, European, Economic and Social Studies
• necessary infrastructure investments;
• political agreements by the Council on large-scale projects such as ITER and Galileo; • necessary appropriations in the field of Common Foreign and Security, including the External Action Service and the European Neighborhood Policy; • international commitments such as the Millennium Development goal of giving 0.7% of the EU-GNI as development aid; • the financing of the European Financial Stabilization Mechanism and the European Stability Mechanism after 2013. The Parliament stresses the role of the European Regional and Common Agricultural Policy in tackling those challenges and therefore stresses that the funding level of 2013 needs to be at least maintained for the two policy areas. With a view to enlargement, Parliament only takes note of “a new round of enlargement, particularly in the direction of the Western Balkans” which indirectly excludes Turkey. However, it demands sufficient funding for the IPA instrument as well as facilitated access to EU funding and stresses its contribution to improvements leading to the compliance of candidate countries with the Community acquis as well as calling for facilitated use of funding. While the report does not provide an estimate of an overall figure for the resources needed, it clearly shows that it would transcend the current budget by far, irrespective of realizable savings. Taking into account the difficult situation in many member states, the Parliament therefore asked for the 2013 level of the budget to be increased by at least 5% in the next period to 1.11% of GNI in order to finance the most pressing needs. Otherwise, the Council must identify priorities for cutting back. In order to gain greater budgetary leeway, the Parliament has further asked for more flexibility within the budget. According to the Parliament, the budget increase should be accompanied by a substantial reform of the revenue system with the goal of making it
Turkey on the European doorstep
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