WRITTEN QUESTION No. 2738/97 by Gianni TAMINO to the Commission. Community contributions to animal experiments
C 117/56 EN Official Journal of the European Communities 16. 4. 98 The current system of Community financing balances two elements, namely each Member Stateís contributive capacity to the Community budget and the need to finance the common policies which constitute the foundation of the Community. With regard to the first element, it is essential that the system of financing is fair and equitable. Indeed, according to a recent review of these issues by the Commission, equity, measured by contributions to the budget relative to the size of each Member Stateís economy in the Community total, has improved and it is expected to improve even further. This improvement has been the result of the 1988 and 1992 reforms which raised the importance of gross national product (GNP), and limited that of value added tax (VAT), as a base for financing the Community. It is forecast that by 1999 the share of the GNP resource will exceed 50% of the budget. Community expenditure reflects a political consensus between the Parliament, the Council and the Commission regarding the Communityís common policies, especially the common agricultural policy (CAP) and the structural funds. While contributions are proportional to the Member Stateís GNP, expenditure is not strictly related to GNP and, as a result, it plays a major role in the determination of the balance between contributions to and receipts from the budget. Many of these issues are addressed in Budget contributions, EU expenditure, budgetary balances and relative prosperity of the Member Statesí, a paper presented by the Commission at the Ecofin Council of 13 October 1997 (1). It is important to note that the Commission does not prepare data on the net budgetary positions of the Member States, neither does it consider such data represent accurately the benefits from membership of the Community. The contribution of traditional own resources (TOR), that is customs and agricultural duties and sugar levies, to the financing of the Community budget has declined significantly. They still play a more than proportional role for some Member States which have particularly important port facilities through which foreign goods enter the Community. Thus, for example, in 1996 contributions from TOR collected by the Netherlands amounted to 11. 9% of total TOR receipts, while the Netherlandsí share in Community GNP was 4. 6%. As noted in Agenda 2000, there are no plans to review the system of own resources at this stage. However, the Commission has also recognized that it may be appropriate to replace contributions from TOR with contributions based on GNP. Agenda 2000 mentions that with the declining importance of TOR in the budget, áthe balance between their advantages and disadvantages as a source of Community finances shifts towards the latter. In particular, their collection and recovery procedures are very complicated, exposed to fraud and very constly in terms of controls. This would not mean that the Union could ignore the effective collection of customs duties by Member States since these duties constitute an instrument of Union trade policy, but would modify substantially the perspective of its involvement in this complex areaí. (1) SEC(97) 1918. (98/C 117/69) WRITTEN QUESTION E-2738/97 by Gianni Tamino (V) to the Commission (1 September 1997) Subject: Community contributions to animal experiments The communication of 18 September 1995 to the orthopaedic clinic of the Sacred Heart catholic university, Rome, concerning experiments on 72 rabbits, on analysis of the characteristics of in vivo biocompatibility of ceramic material for orthopaedic purposes mentions under Fundsí an áagreement No 7090699 with the EECí without giving any details. What type of experiments were involved and what is the total Community contribution? What results beneficial to man were obtained? Will the undertaking given in the Fifth environmental programme to reduce experiments on animals by 50% by the year 2000 be adhered to?