BRUSSELS (AFX) - European Commission president Romano Prodi's Paris speech later this afternoon on EU reforms was arranged months ago and is neither a deliberate response to French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's speech yesterday on Europe's future nor a contribution to the UK electoral debate, Commission sources said.
They said it was pure coincidence Prodi's intervention is coming in Paris the day after after Jospin presented his own vision for Europe's future, they said.
They said Prodi accepted an invitation months ago from the Institute of Political Sciences to speak in Paris today, long before the Commission knew anything about Jospin's plans or indeed that it would coincide with the UK election campaign.
It is a part of series of speeches Prodi is giving, on behalf of the Commission, putting forward ideas for the public debate on changes needed for the EU's working about five years from now, they noted. They are not formal proposals but simply ideas for the debate to which several national government leaders have already contributed and to which the public is also invited to contribute, they said.
Prodi's ideas are not a "blueprint" for reform, they said.
The sources said Prodi specifically is concerned about negative perceptions of how the EU handles money matters.
They cited the last Eurobarometer opinion poll showing most Europeans believe administration accounts for half of the EU's budget, when it is less then 5 pct and the great majority of money goes back to member states as agricultural or structural subsidies, they said. The whole EU budget is, in any case, a tiny proportion of Europe's GDP, they noted.
Prodi is therefore taking up eurogroup president Didier Reynders' ideas for a "eurotax" to replace the direct national contribution to the EU budget by something levied directly from citizens themselves, to associate them directly with the EU, commission analysts noted. A better understanding of how the EU raises money and what it is spent on should help diminish public dissatisfaction with it, the commission hopes.
Prodi is also expected to promote the role of the Commission in EMU and in foreign and defence policy, they said.
For example, it should become the natural counterpart to the independent European Central Bank, based on its existing role as the guarantor of the general interest in economic matters, they said.