Ministers seek cuts in return for TENs

Date: 27/06/1996

By Tim Jones

THE determination of the European Commission to win extra cash for showcase transport projects and research is set to provoke a classic Washington-style budgetary battle between the institutions.

In the run-up to a meeting of EU finance ministers on 8 July, Commission President Jacques Santer will be under pressure to come up with extra spending cuts to compensate for the cash he wants to redirect into R&D and Trans-European Networks.

At the Florence summit, Santer abandoned the idea of finding 2 billion ecu for TENs and research from reallocating unused farm spending. Instead, he wants 1 billion ecu to come from raising the ceiling on the internal policies budget in return for cuts worth 200 million ecu in 1998-99.

But while this will not be enough to win over the German, British, Swedish and Dutch governments, it will probably be too much for MEPs to stomach. This part of the budget, which they control, includes programmes to support the audio-visual sector and culture, education and training, energy, environment, consumer protection, industry and statistics.

For Santer's plans to have any chance of success, he will have to respond to calls from those finance ministers who rejected his initial idea for even deeper cuts in this category of spending - further antagonising MEPs.