Striving Towards a Redistribution of Competences Within the EU

The European Commission is picking up the pace in the negotiations surrounding the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). In May 2018, they will present their medium-term budget plan and the Member States must come to an agreement before the European elections in 2019. As a result of Brexit, the Union will also be losing its highest net contributor, a fact that is creating a shift in political priorities and in the EU’s available funds for the upcoming budget plans. At the same time, there is a multitude of EU policy areas in need of a joint solution as well as the allocation of resources. The potential redistribution of competences between EU institutions and the Member States is the main focus of the next ZEW Lunch Debate „The EU Budget: How Europe Can Deliver“ taking place on 24 January 2018 at the Representation of the State of Baden-Württemberg to the European Union in Brussels.

In a recent study produced in collaboration with the Bertelsmann Stiftung, ZEW researchers analysed which policy areas the EU should be allocating funds to and which it should not.Professor Friedrich Heinemann, head of the Research Department “Corporate Taxation and Public Finance” at the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), will present the main findings of the study at the event. Before the debate, Aart de Geus, CEO of the Bertelsmann Stiftung, will introduce the topic of the discussion and Günther H. Oettinger, EU Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources, will deliver a keynote address.

How should the EU budget be adapted to meet current challenges? And which political obstacles stand in the way of these proposals being implemented? These are just some of the questions that will be addressed at the ZEW Lunch Debate by Aart de Geus, alongside

• ZEW President Professor Achim Wambach
• Stefan Lehner, Director of “Own Resources, Evaluation and Financial Programming” at the Directorate-General for Budget at the European Commission
• Petri Savarmaa, vice-chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgets and coordinator for the European People’s Party on the Committee on Budgetary Control.

The panel discussion will be moderated by Silke Wettach, the Brussels correspondent for the German weekly business magazine “Wirtschaftswoche”. The ZEW Lunch Debate series was launched in 2014. It provides a lunchtime platform for experts to discuss current economic challenges facing Europe. Events within this series, which take place in Brussels on a regular basis, provide an opportunity for controversial, open and committed debate.