Farewell to funds? Keys to understanding Spain’s position when negotiating the 2007-13 EU budget

Provided that the French vote “Yes” in the referendum on the 29th May, the European Council meeting in June this year is set out for reaching a budgetary deal for the 2007-2013. However, as economic stagnation in the Euro-area leads the richest EU countries to increasingly see the way out of their economic problems in reducing their contribution to the EU budget, Spain runs the risk of bearing in solitaire the burden of Eastern enlargement. Having been agricultural expenditure shielded from any substantial cuts due to the Franco-German agreement of October 2002, most of the money currently on the negotiation table is the cohesion and structural money from which Spain benefits so much. Because Spain risks to become a net contributor to the budget before having reached real convergence with the EU-15, the negotiations on the next financial perspectives (2007-2013) can be depicted as the most crucial of all those which Spain has been involved so far. Why so?