Brussels, 28/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 27 June the budgets committee adopted the report by Sidonia El¿bieta Jêdrzejewska (EPP, Poland) on the EU's draft amending budget No. 3/2011. Thus the budgets committee accepts the position of the Council of Ministers of the EU to reduce EU countries' contributions to the budget this year (2011) by €4.5 billion. The amending budget proposal aims to include in the budget the surplus from the 2010 budget year of € 4,539,394,283. The vote by the European Parliament on this dossier will take place next week in Strasbourg.
The surplus is mainly made up of the following elements: the use of revenues of more than €1.8 billion, the expenditure leftovers of €2.72 billion and a positive exchange rate difference of €22.3 million. Most of the “income” part (€1.28 billion out of €1.8 billion) comes from late interest payments and fines. The budgets committee accepts the amending budget but considers that the income calculated on late interest payments and fines should not be considered as surplus and should therefore not be deducted from member states' contributions (own resources based on Gross National Income, GNI). It considers that this income from implementation of European competition policy “should be directly returned to the Union budget to be reinvested”. Members of the budgets committee say they are determined to promote and defend this principle during the next negotiations over the annual and multiannual budgets. “The current Financial Regulation prevents us from deducting fines and interests on late payments from the EU's budget surplus. I am convinced that we should change this provision and reinvest these amounts in the future EU budgets”, said the MEP responsible for amending budgets, Sidonia Jêdrzejewska. (L.C./transl.fl)