This report reviews the various ways in which the Member States of the European Union handle the collection of revenues for the EU budget, as well as the classification and treatment of EU expenditures. The study finds a substantial diversity in these practices among the Member States and calls for a full harmonisation of the accounting procedures. It concludes with some options for transforming the Gross National Income resource into a ‘genuine’ resource for the EU and assesses the potential of a real VAT resource.
Jørgen Mortensen is Senior Research Fellow, Jorge Núñez Ferrer is Associate Research Fellow and Federico Infelise is Research Assistant at CEPS. The report was commissioned by the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgets. It is also available for free downloading from the Parliament’s website (www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2014/490686/IPOL_STU(2014)490686_EN.pdf).
