Vol. 503 No. 3
106 Ms Shortall asked the Minister for Finance if he will report on the matters of relevance to his Department which were discussed or decided at the European Council in Berlin; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10201/99]
I shall outline the results of the Berlin European Council as they affected the future financing of the Community, with particular regard for our potential receipts from the Structural and Cohesion Funds and our contributions to the EU budget.
Concerning future financing, the main outcome was the agreement of the future financial framework covering the years 2000-2006. This involves maintaining the own resources ceiling for the budget at 1.27 per cent of EU GNP. The Berlin European Council agreed a number of changes to the financing system for the EU Budget, mainly in response to the concerns of the four biggest net contributors: Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden, who each make a net contribution to the EU of over 3.5 per cent of GNP. It is estimated that the changes to the own resource system agreed at Berlin will reduce Ireland's contribution to the EU budget by some £31 million, compared to what it would otherwise be, over the period of the 2000-2006 financial perspective. Although Ireland's budget contribution will increase over the period, largely reflecting increases in our GNP, Ireland will still be a sizeable net beneficiary from the EU budget in 2006.
On the expenditure side, the agreement on agriculture, the details of which have been given by the Minister for Agriculture and Food, represents a very satisfactory outcome.
Turning to the Structural Funds, the outcome of the Berlin negotiations encompasses the reclassification of Ireland into two regions, of which one, the Border, midlands and western region, will retain full Objective One status while the other region, the southern and eastern region, will be treated as a region in transition under Objective One. This transition status will last for six years but in the seventh year, 2006, residual amounts of funding from the various funds will still be available under various headings. It is estimated that the regionalisation approach has secured an amount of about £470 million and above what would have otherwise been available to Ireland.
We estimate that, subject to confirmation when the Commission approves member state shareout, Ireland's overall allocation from Structural and Cohesion Fund support in the next round will amount to about £3.3 billion. This overall allocation takes account of headage payments being transferred from category two of the EU budget to category one which deals with agriculture.
