Brussels, 14/10/2010 (Agence Europe) - More generous Community funding for Europol in 2011 and a rise in the EU's contribution to the three new financial supervision authorities - that is the substance of amending letter No 2 to the draft budget for 2011 presented by the European Commission on 11 October. The text is to be examined and approved by the Council and European Parliament.
Europol. Changes introduced by the amending letter are justified by the new tasks assigned to Europol after the approval of the 2011 draft budget. Following the European Parliament and Council's consent to conclude the agreement between the European Union and the United States of America on the processing and transfer of financial messaging data from the European Union to the United States for the purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP), Europol has been tasked since 1 August this year with implementing the EU/US TFTP agreement. This includes the verification of TFTP requests in line with the aforementioned agreement. The new task assigned to Europol requires additional allocation of resources in 2011 and the creation of four new posts, on a full year basis, i.e. to recruit a head of unit backed by two senior specialists in terrorism matters and financial intelligence processing and one legal expert. The financial consequences of this amount to €552,000 of which €400,000 for staff expenditure and €152,000 for operational expenditure.
Financial supervision authorities. The reasoning underpinning the changes introduced in this amending letter is the Commission proposal to entrust the European Securities and Market Authority (ESMA) with new responsibilities for the authorisation and supervision of credit rating agencies, as well as the legislator's decision to assign ESMA, the European Banking Authority (EBA) and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) additional tasks, which were not foreseen in the initial proposals of the Commission for the 2011 budget. The increased funding required for setting up these agencies amounts to €1.224 million and it is foreseen that the following personnel be recruited: - six additional posts for the EBA (3 AD posts and 3 AST posts), six additional posts for the EIOPA (5 AD posts and 1 AST post) and a further 15 posts for the AEMF (10 AD posts and 5 AST posts).
European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism. On 9 May 2010, the Council decided on a comprehensive package of measures to preserve financial stability in Europe, including a financial stabilisation mechanism. To grant this financial assistance, the Commission will borrow on the capital markets or with financial institutions on behalf of the European Union. In order to honour its obligations should the debtors default, the Commission may have to draw on its cash resources to service the debt provisionally. It is therefore proposed that a new budget item be created on the expenditure side and a corresponding new budget article on the revenue side as the budget structure for the guarantee provided by the European Union (the same procedure was carried out for the 2010 budget by means of Amending Budget 5/2010). (L.C./transl.jl)