European Commissioner for Financial Programming & the Budget

The Commissioner for Financial Programming & the Budget is the member of the European Commission. The current commissioner is Dalia Grybauskaitė.

The portfolio is primarily responsible for the management of the budget of the European Union and related finaincial issues except for "budgetary discharge" which falls under the Admin Commissioner.

Current commissioner

Commissioner Grybauskaitė was approved by the European Parliament in 2004 as "Commissioner for Financial Programming & the Budget", a position expanded since the Prodi Commission to include "Financial Programming".

The Commissioner's 121.6 billion euro 2008 budget proposed that for the first time, the budget towards sustainable growth (€57.2 billion) would be higher than that of the Common Agricultural Policy (€56.3 billion), traditionally the largest source of expenditure in the EU. There would be an increase in cohesion funds, energy and transport of 14%, research by 11% and lifelong learning by 9%. There would also be an increase in the administrative budget, Kosovo and Palestinian aid and funds towards the Galileo project. [http://euobserver.com/19/24012?rss_rk=1]

List of commissioners

*Albert Coppé (of Belgium) - Malfatti and Mansholt Commission (1967-1973)
*Wilhelm Haferkamp (of Germany) - Ortoli Commission (1973-1977)
*Christopher Tugendhat (of the United Kingdom - Jenkins & Thorn Commission (1977-1985)
*Henning Christophersen (of Denmark) - Delors Commission I (1985-1989)
*Peter Schmidhuber (of Germany) - Delors Commission II & III (1989-1995)
*Erkki Liikanen (of Finland) - Santer & Marín Commissions (1995-1999)
*Michaele Schreyer (of Germany) - Prodi Commission (1999-2004)
*Marcos Kyprianou (of Cyprus) - Prodi Commission (2004)
*Dalia Grybauskaitė (of Lithuania) - Barroso Commission (2004-2009)

ee also

* Directorate-General for Budget
* European Union Budget

External links

* [http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/grybauskaite/index_en.htm Commissioner's Website]
* [http://ec.europa.eu/budget/index_en.htm Commission Budget Website]
* [http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/budget/index_en.htm DG Budget]