Singular in every way – that is how we might describe the European budget. Its financing depends on the Member States alone and the European Parliament is kept at bay, its spending lines are maintained in the straitjacket of the seven-year Multiannual Financing Framework (MFF), with most of its appropriations being redistributed to its contributors. Although its weight is but modest, 1% of the European GDP, the budgetary rules and procedures seem to have been governed by an overprotective rationale via supervision. Symptomatic of a Europe that no longer communicates with the Europeans.
