A Crazy Reform of the EU Budget: Breaking taboos long overdue though

 

 "The EU budget, worth billions, is to be given new foundations. This is long overdue.

 

Ursula von der Leyen's ideas for reforming the EU budget are radical. Some things are going in the wrong direction. But breaking taboos is long overdue.

 

What Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is clearly planning to do with the EU budget is hard to beat in terms of radicalness. The budget is to be made leaner. In return, the EU is to withdraw from the distribution of the majority of the funds, including agricultural and structural funding. The money is to flow to the national budget as a "subsidy".

 

In return, the states are to promise reforms. At the same time, all funds that have anything to do with competitiveness are to be bundled in a huge new EU fund.

 

Great risk of mistakes

 

This is a bold move. The model for the "cash for reforms approach" is the Corona Fund created in 2021. The The European Court of Auditors has long criticized the fact that this works more poorly than well. The risk of "mistakes" is high. The money flows as soon as certain reforms have been ticked off. What happens to it afterwards is usually no longer adequately monitored.

 

Above all, however, the European Commission's ideas give it too much power. It can dictate to the states the reforms they must implement in return for their share of the budget. 

 

With the Competitiveness Fund, von der Leyen is getting her own personal money bag to shape industrial policy in her own interests, a Von der Leyen Fund as a response to the billion-euro programs of the USA and China.

 

Funding jungle of EU agricultural policy

 

Nevertheless, it is good that von der Leyen dares to break taboos. The EU budget is too bureaucratic and too stuck in the past. The fact that two thirds still go to subsidies for farmers and structural funding speaks for itself. Structural funding alone comprises 398 programs, agricultural policy 54.

 

For too long, Brussels has hidden behind the fact that this is how things have grown and cannot be changed. According to this logic, new tasks can only be financed if the states give more money or the EU takes on debt.

 

Both would be wrong. The EU must therefore radically change its budget and do everything it can to make Europe more competitive. Von der Leyen has kicked off the necessary discussion. 

 

The states must now ensure that in the end the interests of the EU and not those of the Commission are the focus."

 

The members of the Commission don't participate in elections. They are retirees from each country's political class. No wonder that the Commission is unable to make any decisions in the interest of voters.