Zes lidstaten bepleiten beperking nationale afdrachten aan Unie (en)

Today I have received a letter from the leaders of France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom and Austria. In this letter it is argued that in an enlarged European Union the expenditure should not exceed 1.0 % per cent of GNI. In their view this includes agricultural spending within the ceiling set by the European Council in October 2002.

The current ceiling for EU expenditure is 1.24 per cent of GNI.

I take note of the points made in the letter.

I also take note that these Member States, like everyone else, say they want to create the most competitive economy in the world. They wish to achieve better protection of our borders. They insist on controlling migration more efficiently together. They want to build a Union that has a more effective foreign and security policy.

At the same time all Member States want that the Union expresses more solidarity to its poor regions and spends as much money as we do today on agriculture.

I, too, am in favour of achieving all these goals and as always, will do my best to achieve them.

Miracles, however, are not my speciality and they don't seem to come easily to Member States, either.

We will study these ideas seriously but with only 1 per cent of GNI it will simply not be possible to do what these Member States - and all others - expect from us.

If the means attributed to the budget of the Union are not adequate, less will have to be done and some of these goals cannot be fulfilled.

Consequently, I wonder whether this is a reflection of the kind of level of responsibility that these Member States actually want that the Union of 25 achieves.

The Commission will present its political framework for the new financial perspectives in January. We will build our strategy on the basis of the policies that have been declared by the Union as priorities for the Union, which the Community budget should support starting from 2007.