BUDGET: MEPS HOLD FIRST DEBATE ON 2007-2013 FINANCIAL PERSPECTIVE.

Under the current Treaty, the EU is not obliged to use this method of budget planning, since it only provides for annual budgets subject to a procedure involving the European Parliament. Parliament is nevertheless determined to play its role. The Budgets Committee takes the view that the EU's financial arrangements must reflect the needs of Community policies in an enlarged EU. The opposite approach, of adjusting policies to a financial framework which can vary at the whim of governments, must be avoided. In this context, MEPs are astonished that the Commission plans to try to cope with the needs of an EU of 27 Member States (the next financial framework will almost certainly coincide with the...