Brussels, 03/12/2010 (Agence Europe) - Barring any last minute surprises, agreement among the institutions should be reached next week that will break the deadlock on the budget, following the failure of conciliation on 15 November, and finally give the EU a budget for next year.
“It looks as if we are moving towards an agreement. I believe that the solution arrived at by the Council, thanks to the European Parliament's intransigence and the skill of the Belgian Presidency, will prove to be acceptable,” Alain Lamassoure (EPP, France), chairman of the European Parliament (EP) budgets committee, told EUROPE.
A budget trialogue will take place on Monday 6 December. Then, on 8 December, the budgets committee will adopt the new draft budget for 2011. The Conference of the Presidents of the EP political groups will decide on Parliament's final stance. The plenary session vote is expected on 15 December.
New budget flexibility. The Council (unanimously) decided to retain budget flexibility, the “contingency margin” (see EUROPE 10268). This mechanism allows use to be made of the margins below the ceilings, up to a maximum of 0.03% of gross national income (GNI), amounting to roughly €3.4 billion. The decision to mobilise this flexibility will be taken by the Council by qualified majority.
Political statements. Negotiations are continuing between the EP President and the Belgian Presidency to finalise two statements. On the multi-annual financial framework, the Council will not go any further than the text of the statement presented during conciliation in November (based closely on Article 312, paragraphs 2 and 5, Article 324 of the Lisbon Treaty on inter-institutional relations and cooperation). Another possibility that was explored was a possible statement on this issue at the European Council on 16-17 December.
The other statement should be from the Commission. The EP obtained from the Commission a commitment to apply Article 311 of the Lisbon Treaty, which provides for creating new own resources (the Commission will bring forward proposals by June 2011). Lamassoure would have liked to have gone further, with the opening of a “public debate in all countries” before the Commission tables any proposals. “My proposal, which the Conference of the Presidents rejected, was for us all (European institutions and national parliaments) to get round the table at the start of next year to see who should do what (whether European and national budgets) to fund the EU 2020 strategy and see how to secure funding of the European budget with new own resources,” he said. He repeated that the budget crisis had brought into sharp focus that “the European budget can no longer operate through funding from payments from national budgets”. (L.C./transl.rt)