Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review

Questions on the strategy of the EU development still are rare in the political discourse in Lithuania. This, of course, is a temporary phenomenon. Direct "physical" participation of our country in the European integration and consolidation processes shall lead to, inescapably, a larger involvement into debates about strategic issues of these developments. The financing of processes facilitating integration is one among them. The article deals with the debates on a new seven-year budgetary framework of the EU, the so-called financial perspective (FP), for the years 2007-2013. The article begins with description of several prominent and specific features of the EU budget formation and structure. Main attention is given to the discussion about the new FP during the period of 2004-2006. As a main financial document of the EU, the FP has provoked more exact definitions of national interests within the EU member states, brought their differences to the surface, forced them to specify their demands towards scale and structure of the budget, and pushed them one more time for the search of a compromise. The analysis of the discussion is summarized by general conclusions.