For a more independent source of revenue for EU budget

Reacting to the speech made by the President of the European Council in Berlin, Guy Verhofstadt said during a conference on November 11th with Valerie Giscard d'Estaing and Enrique Baron Crespo :

• "Contrary to the claim made by President Herman Van Rompuy in Berlin this week, I believe that the current system for the financing of the Union is fundamentally an egoistic system.
• There is little fairness or transparency in the current budgetary transfers from Member States as many receive rebates, compensations or other kinds of reimbursement on their contributions. Furthermore, the very nature of the 'national contributions' is against the Community spirit and destroys the very idea of solidarity and community.
• Member States are obsessed by what they seemingly get from the Union in monetary terms, when the advantages of being an EU member cannot be calculated in such terms.
• It is for these very reasons that the founding fathers provided for the European Institutions to levy its own revenue through a system of 'own resources'. It was only after Thatcher famously, and disastrously, insisted on getting her money back, that the concept of winners and losers was formulated.
• In stark opposition to the President of the European Council, I believe that it is only by going back to genuine own resources for the Union that fairness, transparency and solidarity will be effectively achieved. "