The debate on the rebate

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject Politics - Topic: European Union grade: 1 University of Twente (Bedrijf Bestuur en Technologie) language: English abstract: In the conclusion of the European Council in December 2005 the Presidency mentions only in a single sentence what had filled covers of newspapers the days before: The European Council reached agreement on the Financial Perspective 2007-2013 as set out in doc. 15915/05.1 It was the second attempt after a former Council six month before and also this time it needed tough negotiations and a number of revised proposals until the quoted sentence could be printed.The reason for this controversy can be summarized in an old German adage: Beim Geld hört die Freundschaft auf. Those who are partners in other situations begin to bargain over every Euro they have to spend for the EU budget giving short-term national interests priority to long-term EU interests. In some way this is understandable despite the fact that the Council should bring forward the European project - politicians are elected in the nation states and have to justify every Euro they leave in Brussels. Besides this the term of solidarity has neither in Article I-2 of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe2 nor in article 1 of the Treaty on European Union3 been concretised.But nevertheless the difficulties surrounding the agreement on the Financial Perspective are symptoms of a serious problem: Countries which pay more into the budget than they get back the so-called net contributors feel to have unacceptable high costs in relation to the benefits they gain from their EU-Membership. The debate on net positions is one of the major reasons which lead to the low acceptance of the European Union in public: According to Eurobarometer 62% of the population are worried about the increasing costs for the Member States of building Europe.4 Only the fear of a transfer of jobs to other Member States was ment