02.12.2016

Two keys to reforming EU financing: more subsidiarity, more transparency

Report by the Advisory Board to the Federal Ministry of Finance

In the debate over efforts to reform the EU budget, repeated calls are made (a) to ensure more transparent and fairer burden-sharing and (b) to replace the widespread juste-retour (“just returns”) mindset with a stronger focus on policies that serve the interests of Europe as a whole. This report argues that it is possible to make EU financing practices more transparent and, in this way, to improve democratic control over the EU budget.