Brussels, 04/12/2012 (Agence Europe) - The 2013 budget and the amending budget 2012 were approved by an indicative Parliamentary committee vote in charge of the budget on Tuesday 4 December. 29 voted in favour, 10 against and there were no abstentions. Guarantees are still being demanded by Parliament before the final vote in next week's plenary session in Strasbourg, particularly on the arrears that are not covered by the amending budget for 2012.
Before the vote, the debates were still proving to be very lively affairs between the parliamentarians that wanted even more guarantees, particularly for the amending budget for 2012. The vote in favour, however, has removed the risk of having to resort to provisional twelfths. The president of the budget committee, Alain Lamassoure (EPP, France), explained that this political vote will allow for procedures at the Council to continue to obtain these two budgets before 2012-2013. Nonetheless, he was keen to point out that certain political groups, while voting in favour, made their vote conditional on obtaining a guarantee for arrears payments worth €9 billion for 2012, but this must not eradicate payment appropriations for 2013. €2.9 billion will not be available in the amending budget 2012 (which promised 6 billion more). A declaration that will be made after the vote, stipulates that the Commission will make a commitment to present a draft amending budget at the beginning of 2013, whose only aim is to cover demands for suspension in 2012, as soon as the suspensions are lifted, as well as the other pending obligations. This should not impact negatively on the appropriate implementation of the 2013 budget. Payment appropriations for this year will not suffer from this. The institutions will also have to agree as soon as possible at the beginning of next year on this additional amending budget. Lamassoure said that in political terms this meant “fresh money” and was the maximum they could obtain without breaching the financial regulation
The legal vote at COREPER is expected to take place on Wednesday 5 December. This will lead to a vote at the Council Thursday or Friday of the same week. The budgetary parliamentary committee will still be meeting up on Monday 10 December in a backdrop to the plenary session in Strasbourg, in view of the final vote on Wednesday 13 December. (MD/transl.fl)