Brussels, 08/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - The European Union's budget for 2012 already has a €11 billion gap, explained EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski on Wednesday, who will be asking the member states at the end of the year to provide more money, he explained in an interview in Financial Times Deutschland.
The member states pay money in to the Commission and also send in invoices to be paid. On 31 December 2011, the Commission had received €15 billion-worth of invoices, mainly for the EU Cohesion Fund and European Social Fund, of which it was able to pay some €4 bn, but does not have enough cash for the remaining €11 bn, which will be carried over into the budget for 2012, explained a spokesperson for the budget commissioner to this newsletter. However, when the 2012 budget was decided upon on 29 November 2011, the EU Council of Ministers slashed the payment appropriations and the budget commissioner warned them at the time that that would cause huge problems in 2012 (unaware in November that the Commission would actually run out of cash in 2011). We were already concerned back then about starting 2012 with a tight budget and, on top of that, an extra 10% of invoices has to be covered, said the spokesperson. Lewandowski's circles said there were “flagrantly contradictory noises” being made by the member states, with the European Council saying that EU funds can help resolve the crisis (helping small business and financing infrastructure) while at the same time, governments are cutting the payment appropriations.
The Commission is looking at how it can find the €11 billion against the backdrop of a dwindling EU budget as a percentage of EU gross national income. There are several options - taking longer to pay the invoices (as long as the legal department agrees); tweaking around the edges of the budget (but that would never net as much as €11 bn); or publishing an amending budget and asking EU member states for more cash. (LC/transl.fl)