Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0055/00557.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 34KB | 601 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00557}
$Pretitle{405}
$Title{United Kingdom
The British Parliament and the Community}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington DC}
$Affiliation{Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington DC}
$Subject{community
member
european
states
market
britain
council
government
agreed
state}
$Date{1990}
$Log{}
Country:     United Kingdom
Book:        Britain in the European Community
Author:      Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington DC
Affiliation: Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington DC
Date:        1990

The British Parliament and the Community

     Ministers representing Britain at the Council of Ministers are
accountable to Parliament, which is kept informed about the Community and its
policies by select committees; by a six-monthly government White Paper on
developments in the Community, which is debated; and by the normal
parliamentary question procedure.

Parliamentary Committees

     Both Houses of Parliament have established committees to examine
proposals for Community legislation and other Community documents. The two
committees receive automatically, via the Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
draft Commission proposals for legislation which have been submitted to the
Council of Ministers. The British government department concerned also
provides an explanatory memorandum describing the subject matter and its
implications for Britain.

     The House of Commons Scrutiny Committee helps Members of Parliament to
identify important proposals which might affect matters of principle or policy
or involve changes in British law. Government ministers and civil servants may
be invited to give evidence to the Committee, and a senior official of the
House assists it in dealing with the legal implications of proposals. Further
legal advice may be given, where necessary, by the Government's Law Officers.
If the Committee recommends that a proposal should be debated by the House,
the Government finds time for the debate.

     The terms of reference of the House of Lords Select Committee are
drawn more widely, for it can identify Community proposals of legal or
political importance and report on their merits. The proposals are remitted
as necessary to one of several specialist subcommittees which may call for
oral or written evidence from the Government and appropriate outside bodies.
The legal implications of Community proposals are examined by a subcommittee
chaired by a Law Lord. Reports are made to the House, some of which recommend
debate; as in the Commons, time is found for this.

Other Means of Information

     Every month when Parliament is sitting a report is made by the
responsible minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth office listing all the
Council meetings due to be held in the coming month and the subjects expected
to be discussed at each meeting. After each Council meeting the minister who
attended it is expected to report to the House of Commons on the discussions
that took place. After meetings of the European Council the Prime Minister
reports to the House and is questioned.

     Every six months the Government publishes a White Paper summarising
developments in the Community and giving an indication of the Government's
general approach and policy on specific issues. After its publication the
House of Commons holds a wide-ranging debate on Community issues. Members
of both Houses may table questions on any Community topic for written or oral
answer by the appropriate minister.

Finance

     The Community is financed from revenue contributed by member states,
known as `own resources'. These consist of levies collected on trade in
agricultural products between the Community and the rest of the world; customs
duties on imports into the Community; value added tax (VAT) levied at a rate
of up to 1.4 per cent on a notional harmonised base; and a share of the
Community's gross national product (GNP) up to an amount required to balance
the budget within an own-resources ceiling of 1.2 per cent of GNP (see below).
About 60 per cent of the budget is devoted to agriculture, the bulk of the
rest going to social and regional policy, science and research, and aid to
developing countries.

     The Community budget is denominated in European Currency Units (ECUs).
The ECU is a weighted average of Community currencies, the value of which is
calculated on a daily basis against all major world currencies.

Britain's Contribution

     Because of an imbalance between Community policies, a problem arose in
the late 1970s over the level of Britain's net contribution. By the end of the
1970s it had become clear that this contribution was becoming excessive in
relation to its share of Community GNP. Accordingly, Britain sought a
correction; following negotiations, refunds were given to Britain for each of
the years in the period from 1980 to 1983.

     At the European Council meeting at Fontainebleau in June 1984 the
Community agreed on a more permanent arrangement under which Britain received
an ad hoc lump sum abatement in respect of 1984 and, for later years, an
annual abatement of 66 per cent of the difference - in the previous
year - between Britain's share of the Community's VAT revenues and its share
of the Community's allocated budget. The Community's VAT ceiling was raised
from 1 per cent to 1.4 per cent in January 1986, partly to meet increased
expenditure. By the end of 1989, the cumulative value of abatements agreed at
Fontainebleau totalled some 5,759 million Pounds.

Further Budgetary Reforms

     Britain has been a staunch supporter of attempts to control Community
expenditure. In December 1984 the Council of Ministers agreed to a system of
budgetary discipline designed to ensure that expenditure on agricultural
support rose at a rate lower than the rate of increase in the Community's own
resources base. Member states also agreed to respect the maximum rate
provisions in the Treaty of Rome, designed to restrict the growth of other
types of spending.

     It soon became clear that even more effective measures were needed to
curb spending. In February 1988 the European Council agreed a number of
measures to restrain the costs of the Community's agricultural policy (see p
24). These include a set of limits on six categories of expenditure for the
period between 1988 and 1992. The Council accepted that commitments to the
Community's structural funds (see p 22) should rise by about 900 million
Pounds (in constant 1988 prices) a year from 1989 to 1992, which would permit
the doubling by 1993 of the resources channelled to less-developed regions
within the Community. It was also agreed that the ceiling on own resources
should be expressed in terms of Community GNP rather than VAT. The Community's
overall own-resources ceiling for the 12 member states is 1.2 per cent of
Community GNP, an increase of about 25 per cent over the previous figure. This
ceiling is to remain in force until at least 1992; within it there are
sub-ceilings rising from 1.15 per cent of GNP in 1988 to 1.2 per cent in 1992.
The cost of Britain's abatement to other member states is outside the ceiling.

Adoption of the Annual Budget

     The Commission is responsible for drawing up a preliminary draft budget
based on its own estimates and those submitted by the other Community
institutions, and presents it to the Council of Ministers and the European
Parliament, usually in June. The Council then approves a draft budget. The
Parliament scrutinises the draft and can propose modifications to `compulsory'
expenditure (which accounts for about 70 per cent of the budget) and
amendments to `non-compulsory' items. Compulsory expenditure consists of
expenditure on policies arising directly out of the Treaties, principally the
Common Agricultural Policy, and includes expenditure arising from
international agreements, for example some kinds of development assistance.
The non-compulsory part covers other policies adopted by the Community, as
well as administration.

     The Council exa