Funding the European Union

In this important new study, Professor Iain Begg of the LSE examines for the Federal Trust a wide range of questions related to the European Union's budget. Taking as his starting-point the Union's current budgetary negotiations, Professor Begg gives a detailed analysis of the present state of the EU's finances and their likely evolution. He concludes that this year's negotiations will only marginally change the European budget's existing structure. Europe's leaders, however, should already be thinking about an EU budget for the future which is politically more coherent and economically more rational than the present arrangements.