To help pay back the money borrowed to finance the non-repayable financial support for Member States under the €750 billion NextGenerationEU recovery plan, the European Commission has proposed introducing three new categories of own resources. An Opinion published today by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) examines the Commission’s proposed methods and procedure for making those new own resources available to the EU budget.
Although the details are not yet clear enough to allow a full assessment, the ECA acknowledges the merits of the proposed rules for managing the new sources of revenue. The auditors call for more consistency in the rules for making all existing and proposed own resources available to the EU budget, and for their consolidation in a single legislative act, warning also that the EU’s financing system remains complex.
The auditors note that the Commission proposed the rules for making the new own resources available before the corresponding sectoral legislation on the related sources of revenue had been adopted, which limits the assessment they can make at this stage.
Although the auditors acknowledge that some of the proposed new approaches may increase predictability and reduce the administrative burden, they call for more consistency in the rules for managing own resources.
The auditors also welcome the fact that the proposed regulation mirrors the structure of the legislation in force for the existing own resources. However, they urge the Commission to consolidate the rules for managing all own resources in a single legislative act.