Brussels, 09/12/2010 (Agence Europe) - The European institutions are moving closer to agreeing on the EU's budget for next year, but MEPs are keeping the pressure up. The European Parliament's budgets committee will be holding a special meeting in Strasbourg on Monday 13 December to vote on two important aspects of the 2011 budget, namely the new Contingency Margin and the decision revising the EU's financial perspectives to find cash for the ITER international thermonuclear reactor experiment.
The budgets committee has already endorsed the numbers for the new draft budget for 2011, i.e. a 2.91% rise on 2010 for the total payment appropriations (to €126.5 billion) and a 0.2% rise in the total commitment appropriations (to €141.8bn). It has also endorsed the decision to take €105 million using the Flexibility Instrument to round off financing from the 2011 budget, extending beyond the upper limits of Heading 1a (Competitiveness) and Heading 4 (Foreign Action) by the following amounts: €18 million for the lifelong education and training programme under Heading 1a; €16 million for the competitiveness and innovation programme under Heading 1a; and €71 million for Palestine under Heading 4.
The chair of the EP's budgets committee, Alain Lamassoure, said on Wednesday 8 December that several political groups - the Socialists, Greens, Liberal Group and GUE - want the vote on ITER and the contingency margin to be postponed. He then convened a special meeting of the budgets committee from 8.30pm-10.00pm on Monday 13 December to vote on the two issues. The leader of the Greens/EFA Group, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, even called for voting on the two issues to be put off until next year, to which Lamassoure answered that there were several groups that didn't want a vote that day and the issue would be examined on Monday.
EP rapporteur Sidonia Jêdrzejewska (EPP, Poland) welcomed the budget committee's vote in favour of the draft budget that includes some of the EP's priorities (youth programmes, education and training, Erasmus Mundus and aid for Palestine).
Reservations. The budgets committee voted some reserve funding for the EU's new diplomatic corps (EEAS), the European Police College and the Schengen II Information System, reflecting the committee's concerns for transparency and proper implementation of EU policies, explained Jêdrzejewska. The committee members ask the European Commission to provide further information and proposals on the budget lines in question. As soon as the Commission has provided the information required, the committee will lift its reservations, added the rapporteur.
The EU Council of Ministers is preparing to endorse the draft EU budget for 2011 on Friday 10 December (see EUROPE 10273).
The EP conference of presidents agrees to separate votes. On the initiative of Guy Verhofstadt, chair of the ALDE Group, and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, chair of the Greens/EFA, the S&D, GUE/NGL and EFD Groups have decided to postpone the vote on the multiannual financial framework (and addition of the contingency reserve) and the vote on funding for ITER. The European Parliament will therefore hold a debate on 14 December and vote on 14 December on the figures for the 2011 budget alone. They explain that separating out the votes like this (only the EPP and the ECR disagree) aims to put pressure on the Council of Ministers, which endorsed a 2011 budget that many MEPs said was inadequate. The European Commission initially suggested a rise of more than 5% in payment appropriations for 2011. The ALDE and Greens say that member states will have to agree to greater flexibility for use of the contingency margin than they are currently considering in order to deal with unexpected payments that will inevitably arise during the budget time period. The EP is pleased to have opened the debate about
new EU funding sources and hopes it will be mentioned in the conclusions document of next week's European Council. (L.C./transl.fl)