Prime Minister of Antonis Samaras welcomed the official launch of the High Level Group on Own Resources, which took place in Strasbourg yesterday (25.02), and warmly congratulated Mario Monti on his appointment as its Chairman.

The group will undertake a general review of the way in which the EU budget is funded, with a view to making the own resources system simpler, more transparent and more accountable. The new system should replace the current system that is depending on Member States' contributions.

In a joint press conference with European Parliament President Martin Schulz, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and the group's chairman Mario Monti, Samaras stressed that it would be "a great leap forward for the EU if we arrived at a new system for [managing] own resources." He noted that all governments and EU institutions considered the current own resources system too complex and unable to address real needs. "The high level group is not a typical bureaucratic body. Its members will work fully independently and their only goal will be to serve the interests of the EU," he added.