How are we financed ?

BEUC is an independent non profit making  consumer organisation, registered under Belgian law as an AISBL (Association Internationale Sans But Lucratif).

The operational budget

In 2009, the operational budget of BEUC amounted, to €2.8m. It represents 70% of our total income.

The operational budget is devoted to our core activities : campaigning and lobbying the EU institutions in the consumer interests and providing feedback to our members on  EU developments in this field.

Our biggest contributors in this context are our member organisations. In 2009. their contributions represented 54% of our operational budget.

Members contribute, in principle, 0.45% of their income to BEUC. However, only the more resourced members do so. 16 members, originating from the new Member States only pay a very small lump sum of 1050 € per year and their costs for joining the BEUC meetings (general assembly, expert groups, working groups) are widely reimbursed by BEUC.  This policy has been set up by BEUC in order to make it possible to effectively involve the consumer organisations from the new Member States in the decision making process at EU level.

The EU budget 2007-2013 provides for a budget line that allocates  EU operational grants to European consumer organisations. Very strict criteria have to be met in order to be eligible for this grant. Every year, a grant application has to be made and a detailed work programme and budget has to be submitted. Among the conditions, it must be made clear that efforts are devoted in order to strengthen the consumer movement in the new Member States.

This grant finds its justification in the need to provide EU decision makers with a balanced feedback from various interest groups, and to fill the gap in the representation of those interest groups linked to the imbalanced means of business and trade interests on the one hand, and non for profit making organisations on the other. This is one of the initiatives taken by the EU to neutralise the democratic deficit of which it has been accused.

In 2009, the EU funding represented 46 % of the operational BEUC budget.

Projects

In addition to the operational budget, BEUC is engaged in projects that we carry out on the basis of calls for tenders that have been published, and that have been won by us. This is the case, for example, for the TRACE training programme : www.trace-beuc.org or the CLEF project : www.clef-project.eu. In this context, specific resources are devoted to those projects (staff, workstations, IT equipment).

In 2009, BEUC is carrying out projects for an overall budget of 1.160.000 €. The project related budget represents 29% of the total income of BEUC.