The European Union needs a sweeping budget reform to redirect cash away from agriculture spending toward research, development and infrastructure, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said on Saturday.
Steinbrueck was speaking at a news conference in Vienna during a meeting of EU finance ministers and central bank governors only a few days after the 25-nation block finally sealed an accord on spending for the next seven years.
But looking ahead to a revision of spending plans planned for 2008 or 2009, Steinbrueck said the EU needed to devote more cash to investing in the future rather than in the past. Berlin makes the largest contribution to the union's budget.
"Scarcely anyone would claim that the current funds within the European budget are correctly allocated," Steinbrueck said. "One only has to think that probably around 50 percent goes to the farming industry."
The EU's executive body, the European Commission will make proposals for the spending revision which will then be discussed by member states. Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said there will be "no taboos" in the revision, creating the potential for a spat with France where farmers benefit massively from EU handouts.
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