Chapter 33- Financial and Budgetary Provisions

Content of the Chapter

This chapter covers the rules concerning the financial resources necessary for the funding of the EU budget (own resources) after the membership. These resources are made up traditional own resources from customs duties which are levied by the member states on behalf of the EU, a resource based on value-added tax, a resource based on each Member State’s gross national income and plastics own resource (from 1 January 2021). Member States must have appropriate administrative capacity to adequately co-ordinate and ensure the correct calculation, payment and control of own resources and report to the EU with the aim of adapting the rules concerning own resources. The Acquis in this area is to be implemented with the membership and does not require transposition into national law.

The EU budget is primarily dedicated to investment and covers a seven-year period which is known as the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). The EU’s long-term budget for 2021-2027, together with the Next Generation EU recovery instrument (€750 billion in 2018 prices) totals €2.018 trillion (€1.8 trillion in 2018 prices).

Next Generation EU will be channelled through several programmes, including Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), ReactEU, Horizon Europe, InvestEU, Rural Development, Just Transition Funds (JTF) and RescEU.

To fund Next Generation EU, the Commission will borrow on the capital markets on behalf of the EU, for up to around €800 billion at current prices. In order to help repay the borrowing new own resources will be introduced to complement Member States' contributions to the EU budget. The first new own resource based on non-recycled plastic waste has been in place as of 1 January 2021.

Current Situation of the Chapter in the Negotiation Process

Explanatory screening meeting was held on 6 September 2006 and detailed screening meeting was held on 4 October 2006. In Türkiye-EU Summit of 18 March 2016, it is decided that the chapter would be opened to negotiations during the Netherlands EU Presidency. The decision for the opening of the chapter was taken by the European Council on 30 June 2016, with no opening benchmarks.

For the provisional closure of the negotiations on the chapter, there is a closing benchmark to be met in addition to the obligation of full non-discriminatory implementation of the Additional Protocol to the Association Agreement. This is: “Türkiye increases its administrative capacity and coordination structure and to this end adopts an action plan in order to sufficiently prepare and introduce procedural rules to ensure that it will be able, from accession, to correctly calculate, forecast, account for, collect, pay, control and report to the EU on own resources in line with the acquis.”

As the chapter covers some issues addressed under other chapters such as “Taxation”, “Customs Union”, “Financial Control” and “Statistics”, works for the alignment with the acquis have also been carried out under these chapters. 

Useful  Links:

Detailed information on the EU budget 

http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained/budg_system/financing/fin_en.cfm

Next Generation EU

https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/recovery-plan-europe_en

Screening Process

Presentations - Explanatory Screening Meeting (6 September 2006) 
Presentations- Bilateral Screening Meeting (4 October 2006)

Screening Report (Pdf-45 KB)