Belgium, Brussels, 16 and 17 December 2005: Prime Minister Janša attending the European Council. The Prime Minister talking to the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (Photo: BOBO)

Slovenia’s Prime Minister said he was pleased and convinced that the resulting net situation was good for Slovenia. Mr Janša stressed that the result was both better than anticipated and better than the penultimate proposal of the UK EU Presidency. “We now have a European budget totalling over € 860 billion. The cohesion part of the budget has increased, and to a certain extent there are more funds earmarked for rural development. The allocation of funds with respect to the structure of the budget itself has been improved, since there will be more funding for the attainment of the Lisbon Strategy objectives, that is, for research and development,” said the Prime Minister.

 

The deal also brought about the decision that in the calculation of the British rebate, expenditure related to EU enlargement would be permanently excluded. A welcome novelty is also the decision regarding the overall budget review to take place in 2008 to 2009, explained Prime Minister Janez Janša, who went on to add that the review would cover both the Common Agricultural Policy and the entire British rebate.

 

Belgium, Brussels, 16 and 17 December 2005: Prime Minister Janša attending the European Council meeting (Photo: BOBO)

The European budget now needs to be co-ordinated between the European Commission and the European Parliament. “Since the funds for European administration have partly increased, this task is going to be a little easier,” said the Prime Minister, adding that Slovenia is pleased with this European Council despite the overall budget being lower than the last one proposed by the Luxembourg Presidency. “Slovenia has indeed retained the same position which it had at that time. It is a fact that for cohesion policy, our funds at the annual level have increased fourfold compared with the current Financial Perspective. In cash, this means about SIT 120 billion yearly, which is a lot of cohesion money,” stressed the Prime Minister. Since the rules of the use of the funding have also changed – the “n+3 rule” will be applied and not “n+2” – enabling better use of the funding and more flexibility, this is a considerable injection for Slovenia’s developmental needs, which can give a significant boost to Slovene economic development, according to the Prime Minister. He went on to say that a major change had occurred in the country's own contribution – a reduction from the previous 25 percent to15 percent from now on, which greatly relieves the national budget and increases the effect of the funding.

 

Prime Minister Janša also said that among the remaining important decisions – partly conditional on the adoption of the Financial Perspective – the most significant was Macedonia being granted candidate status, a good sign for the European future of not only Macedonia but of the entire region.