Europarlementariërs willen afschaffing van de Engelse korting op de EU-begroting (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - MEPs in the budget committee agree that the UK's annual rebate from the EU's common coffers should be abolished by 2013 as part of the bloc's forthcoming budgetary review.

The committee on Monday (12 March) adopted a non-binding report by French centre-right Deputy Alain Lamassoure on the EU's revenues or "own resources" which argues that the revised system should be more transparent and simpler than the current one.

The European Commission is planning to launch a public debate in mid-2007 on what future EU priorities will be financed from its common coffers, which will be summed up in a "highly political" paper by the commission in late 2008.

As part of the budgetary review, a new formula on how to calculate the contributions by individual member states should be proposed - in order to avoid similar rifts in future as the recent row among member states on the EU's financial plan for 2007 to 2013.

Mr Lamassoure argues there should be a two-phase solution for changing the existing formula to calculate the bloc's revenues, currently worth around €115 billion per year.

As part of the first and transitional model, the EU should be financed from a fraction of member states' gross national income (GNI) which the rapporteur says best reflects their prosperity, and also from levies on agriculture imports and parts of custom duties.

UK rebate to go first

Referring to the principle of "equality between member states", the French MEP says no country should get any budgetary privileges, suggesting that the most controversial provision - the UK's rebate - be abolished by 2013.

The annual discount on Britain's EU membership fee dates back to 1984 when the country's then prime minister Margaret Thatcher argued the UK was poorer than the rest of the West-European club and should get a part of its contribution to the common budget back.

Opponents of the rebate claim Britain is far more prosperous now and should give up this discount, but London refuses to do so unless the whole budgetary package is reformed, particularly its expenses - predominantly poured into EU farm aid.

Final stage: Not EU tax but almost

In the long-term - starting in 2014 - the centre-right rapporteur foresees a sort of genuine own resource for the union, based only on a direct share of a tax, similar to the way that regional and local administrations are financed across Europe.

According to the report, Europe may not yet be ripe for its own tax but the new system could make use of an existing tax in the member states, part of which would be paid directly to the EU budget.

As examples of such existing taxes, Mr Lamassoure has mentioned VAT, excise duties on motor fuel for road transport, excise duties on tobacco and alcohol or taxes on corporate profits.

Several MEPs in the budgets committee floated other possible fiscal resources, such as taxes on share trading, on financial transactions or on savings.

But EU budget commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite told EUobserver the bloc should avoid solutions that would see a sort of common tax linked to a particular sector, while arguing the EU is not ready to levy its own taxes.

"Any tax system is based on institutional and economic integration. Only if we deepen and finalise our internal market, some new taxes will be appearing and very objectively so. But any type of tax system can't be more progressive than the basis for it," she said.

She explained that while some member states function as federations and can impose federal taxes "the EU is not a federation, it does not have a federal government and our integration is going differently."