VERA – Forward Visions on the European Research Area

VERA is funded by the European Union's FP7 programme for research,
technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 290705

A Budget for Europe 2020 (Part II)

Code: A04

Primary project information

Lead: European Commission
Additional project partners: European Parliament, the Member States
Type of activity: Policy proposal: The financial framework sets the maximum amount of commitment appropriations in the EU budget each year for broad policy areas ("headings") and fixes an overall annual ceiling on payment and commitment appropriations.
Date conducted: N/A
Date of Publication: 29.06.2011
Duration: Each year, through a democratic decision making process, the Council and the European Parliament decide exactly how much to spend on each of these policy areas / policy fiches.
Summary: Following policy fiches are addressed in the policy proposal (II): Agriculture and rural development, citizens, civil protection, climate action, competitiveness and SMEs, customs union and taxation economic, social and territorial cohesion education and culture, employment and social affairs, environment, external action, fight against fraud, health and consumers, home affairs, infrastructure – 'Connecting Europe' facility, innovative financial instruments, justice, maritime and fisheries policy. research and innovation and administration.
Financed by: EU
Budget: No overview, budgetary framework information devided into policy fiches
Research area/market/industry/sector: overarching
Main report (full title): COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS - A Budget for Europe 2020 - Part II: Policy fiches - COM (2011) 500 final

GRAND CHALLENGES

Economic Challenges: Competitiveness and SMEs [17ff]: ensuring that SMEs are able to take full advantage of the enormous potential of the European single market, developing competitiveness in the tourism industry and promoting ICT uptake by tourism enterprises, combating tourism seasonality; promoting sustainable tourism products and destinations; deploying a skills and competences framework for employees and employers in the sector; facilitating exchange of best practices and partnership creation. Customs Union and Taxation [21ff]: facilitate the flow of goods for legitimate traders while at the same time protecting citizens against risks to their safety and security, combat fraud within the single market
Economic Challenges Shortlist: transform Europe into a knowledge-based, resource-efficient economy; ensure that SMEs are able to take full advantage of the enormous potential of the European single market; promoting sustainable tourism products and destinations; deploying a skills and competences framework for employees and employers in the tourism sector; facilitating exchange of best practices and partnership creation in the tourism sector
Geopolitical Challenges: External Action [42ff]: promoting and defending EU values abroad, increasing the impact of EU development cooperation, investing in the long-term prosperity and stability of the EU's Neighbourhood, enhancing European solidarity following natural or man-made disasters, improving crisis prevention and resolution, ensure that candidate countries and potential candidates are fully prepared for eventual accession, supporting deeper political cooperation, closer economic integration with the EU and support to effective and sustainable transition to democracy, promoting nuclear safety. Home Affairs [52ff]: reduce serious and organised crime/cybercrime and terrorism, control of the EU's external borders
Geopolitical Challenges Shortlist: incrase impact of EU development cooperation; investments in long-term prosperity and stability of the EU's neighbourhood; improve crisis aprevention and resolution; reduce serous and organised crime/cybercrime and terrorism
Societal Challenges: Education and Culture [28ff]: cultural diversity, modernisation of education and training systems, increased investment in human capital. Employment and Social Affairs [32ff]: shortfalls in skill levels, facilitate the European social dialogue which is a crucial component of the European social model. Citizen [7ff]: ensure that European public interest organisations can develop their input to EU-wide debates, more efficiency in communication to the public at large and stronger synergies between the communication activities of the Commission. Civil Protection [9ff]: ensure better protection of people, the environment, property and cultural heritage in the event of major natural, technological and man-made disasters, facilitating a rapid and efficient response to disasters, ensuring sufficient preparedness of civil protection actors to emergencies, developing measures for the prevention of disaster, reinforce risk management planning and to develop innovative financing mechanisms (such as regional insurance pooling)
Societal Challenges Shortlist: cultural diversity; modernisation of education and training systems; increase; investment in human capital; facilitate social dialogue (in Europe); ensure possibility of input from public interest organisations; improve protection of people, the environment, property and cultural heritage in events of natural, technological or man-made disasters; facilitation of rapid and efficient response to disaster; reinforce risk management and develop innovative financing mechanisms (such as regional insurance pooling)
Technical Challenges: Infrastructure – 'Connecting Europe' Facility [55ff]: Need for infrastructures with a Single Market dimension, Investments in large-scale projects for demand/supply balancing using smart grid solutions for high and medium voltage electricity grids in large cross-border regions with significant variable electricity generation ) / development of geographically diversified portfolio of broadband projects which contribute to the objectives set out by the Digital Agenda for Europe, enabling access to digital resources of Europe's cultural heritage (Europeana) / interoperable secure electronic identification and authentication across Europe, interoperable cross-border electronic procurement services, electronic procedures for setting up a business in another European country (in the context of the Services Directive) / interoperable electronic support for health assistance anywhere in the EU / safer Internet for children / provide eBusinesses (eCommerce providers) with unconstrained access to re-usable multilingual building blocks centred on online translation, interactive speech-based services, and multilingual content search.
Technical Challenges Shortlist: investments in infrastructure with Single Market dimension; Digital Agenda for Europe; interoperable electronic support for health assistance anywhere in the EU
Health Challenges: Health and Consumers [49ff]: protect and improve the health of European citizens, ensure that food is safe and wholesome, protect the health of plants and the welfare and health of animals
Health Challenges Shortlist: protection and improvement of the health of European citizens; ensure that food is safe and wholesome; protection of plant and animal health
Cross-cutting Challenges: Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion [24ff]: reduce the significant economic, social and territorial disparities, territorial cooperation / combating climate change on an international level a specific EU objective [14]. Research and Innovation [83ff]: Europe needs cutting-edge research and innovation that goes beyond national boundaries / examples for more research -> ageing population, resource scarcity, treat Alzheimer's disease / making EU research funding simpler and more coherent
Cross-cutting Challenges Shortlist: reduction of significant economic, social and territorial disparities; further territorial cooperation; combat climate change on an international level; need for cutting-edge research and innovation beyond national boundaries in Europe; incrase research in areas such as ageing population, resource scarcity, Alzheimer's disease; make EU research funding simpler and more coherent
Other Challenges: Agriculture and rural development [3ff]: improve the competitiveness of the agriculture and forestry sectors, promote the diversification of economic activity and quality of life in rural areas, provide direct support to farmers and to support market measures funded entirely by the EU budget, maximise the synergies between rural development policy and the EU's other territorial development funds, research and innovation on food security, bio-economy and sustainable agriculture Infrastructure – 'Connecting Europe' Facility [55ff]: Need for infrastructures with a Single Market dimension, Investments in large-scale projects for demand/supply balancing using smart grid solutions for high and medium voltage electricity grids in large cross-border regions with significant variable electricity generation ) / development of geographically diversified portfolio of broadband projects which contribute to the objectives set out by the Digital Agenda for Europe, enabling access to digital resources of Europe's cultural heritage (Europeana) / interoperable secure electronic identification and authentication across Europe, interoperable cross-border electronic procurement services, electronic procedures for setting up a business in another European country (in the context of the Services Directive) / interoperable electronic support for health assistance anywhere in the EU / safer Internet for children / provide eBusinesses (eCommerce providers) with unconstrained access to re-usable multilingual building blocks centred on online translation, interactive speech-based services, and multilingual content search.
Other Challenges Shortlist: improve the competitiveness of the agriculture and forestry sectors; promote the diversification of economic activity and quality of life in rural areas; maximise synergies between rural development policy and the EU's other territorial development funds; incrase resarch and innovation on food security, bio-economy and sustainable agriculture

Summary of relevant aspects

Connecting fields: Fight against Fraud [47ff]: secure infrastructure for the exchange of fraud-related information among Member States and between Member States and the Commission, fight against cigarette smuggling, fight against Euro counterfeiting. Innovative Financial Instruments [75ff]: need -> new, innovative financing stream for strategic investments. Administration [87ff]: no increase in operational administrative expenditure, without prejudice to additional costs resulting from future enlargements, modifications of the EU staff regulatory framework
Other Aspects of Governance: Very important! Mentioned, but not specified for: the climate action sub-programme [14], Economic and territorial cohesion [24, 26, 30], external action [40], innovative financial instruments [76], maritime and fisheries policy [80]
Surprising Issues: The reformed Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) will include a system of 'convergence' to reduce these disparities and promote a fairer distribution of financial support [4]. All Member States with direct payments below 90% of the EU-27 average will, over the period, close one third of the gap between their current level and 90% of the EU average direct payments.
Background information: Financial instruments do not imply more risk than grants, as the risk for the EU budget is in all cases strictly limited to the budgetary contribution. The EU budget cannot run a deficit [75]. Each year, through a democratic decision making process, the Council and the European Parliament decide exactly how much to spend on each of these policy areas / policy fiches.

Scenarios

Actions/solutions implied: Climate Action: The Commission considers that the future LIFE+ programme programme should remain centrally managed, but that management tasks could to a large extent be delegated to an existing executive agency -> align it more closely to the Europe 2020 objectives. Competitiveness and SMEs simplifying rules, providing a "one-stop shop" to make life easier for the beneficiaries of EU funding [17]. Customs Union and Taxation: strong administrative co-operation arrangements between Member State tax administrations and the efficient sharing of information on transactions, businesses or fraud schemes [21], Trans-European IT systems [22]. Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion: increased concentration on Europe 2020 / a new category of region – ‘transition regions’ – will be introduced to replace the current phasing-out and phasing-in system [24]. Employment and Social Affairs: reduction in the number of financial instruments and budget lines and the streamlining of management and implementation methods and systems
Who benefits from the actions taken?: The financial/ economic and societal system in Europe.

Meta information

Time horizon: 2014-2020
Methods: not specified
Target Group: Member States
Objectives: See Part I (The EC aims to give value for money for Europe's citizens. A large part of the budget will be aimed at getting people into work and the economy growing, tied in with the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.)
Countries covered: EU
Geographic scope:

Entry Details

Rapporteur: Claudia Steindl
Rapporteur's organization: AIT
Entry Date: May 2012