Towards a new means of funding the Union?

For several years the financing of the European budget has been under challenge: it is hard to understand and overly dependent on the States. There is nothing to distinguish national contributions, levied from the Member States' tax revenues from the Union's so-called "own resources" as anticipated in the treaties. In 2005 the European Council committed to look into the issue and since then the European Parliament has made it its main priority. In 2011 the European Commission presented reform proposals. The proposal, which was both reasonable and innovative, suggested making changes to customs duties, VAT that provided means to the European budget and Member States' rebates. It plans the creation of a financial transaction tax (FTT), a great share of which would be used to finance the European budget. This enhanced cooperation agreement on the FTT that will very probably be concluded between some States opens the way to progress in the area of European taxation, and even towards other, more ambitious resources.

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