Strasbourg, 11/12/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Monday evening 10 December, the Parliamentary budget committee confirmed its first political approval of the compromise on the 2013 budget and the draft amending budget for 2012. This time, MEPs submitted the amendments on these reports to a vote and not the whole package. All the amendments submitted by the Greens/EFA and S&D groups were rejected. The majority was obtained by the EPP, ALDE and ECR groups. Nonetheless, the Greens promised that they would still oppose the agreement on the budgetary package during the final vote on Wednesday 12 December.
Guarantees given. The European Parliament agreed to give its signature on the condition that the three institutions would sign a declaration stipulating that the €2.9 billion of payment appropriations still needed in the draft amending budget 2012 (funding for 6 billion out of the 9 billion needed is planned) would be paid in 2013 without there being any effects on the budget for the same year. The Cypriot presidency and the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, did not have any difficulty in signing this declaration, which therefore also plans for the draft amending budget for 2013. This declaration will be presented and signed before the vote in the morning of Wednesday12 December.
At the end of the tunnel. During the debates preceding this vote on Tuesday 11 December, the representative of the Cypriot presidency effectively affirmed that the idea is that the European Parliament will approve it without amendments, which will avoid it having to go through difficult negotiations and resorting to the provisional twelfths. The European Commissioner for the budget, Janusz Lewandowski, asserted that we will begin 2013 with a good budget. Even if it is not perfect, it has the merit of ensuring continuity. He said that he was concerned about the too low levels of payments (5 billion less than planned). The president of the European Parliament budgets committee, Alain Lamassoure (EPP, France), pointed out that it was necessary to learn the lessons from this crisis and that in the future they would need to have permanent consultations about payments, to avoid such a scenario repeating itself. He also welcomed the fact that Wednesday's vote on the package would allow all frozen programmes to be rescued from suffocation.
Greens unhappy. By promising to repeat their vote against on Wednesday, the Greens are seeking to denounce this vicious circle, where every year begins with a deficit. They are therefore demanding an impromptu negotiation on the amending budgets at the end of the year. Daniel Cohn Bendit (Greens/EFA, Germany) described the situation as nonsensical, saying that they understand the pressure, and are not claiming there has been any treachery; they are simply saying that it is a mistake.
Globalisation Adjustment Fund. The European Globalisation Adjustment Fund will be immediately released for seven countries (the vote is on Wednesday too). (MD/transl.fl)