Brussels, 03/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - After the United Kingdom, it's the turn of the Netherlands to protest against the scale of the extension of the €11.2 billion requested of the EU member states by the European Commission with the objective of paying in 2013 the arrears from 2012 (see EUROPE 10816).
The Dutch minister of finance and president of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, stated on Tuesday 2 April, that commitments had been taken in the past while the budget was too small for this. “It is a recurrent tendency in the European Union that consists of taking commitments while there is not enough money, and we don't want the budget to be enlarged each time”, he said.
“I note that in its proposal, the Commission has made no effort to find opportunities on other budget lines”, Dijsselbloem said in a letter to Dutch ministers on Tuesday. He also argues that he does not see clearly how the Commission can already now indicate the resources that it will need for the whole of 2013. Dijsselbloem insisted on the need to ally with other countries to form a blocking minority ahead of changing this amending budget, which must be adopted by qualified majority.
The Netherlands contributes to the EU budget up to about 5%. The Dutch share of the €11.2 billion would therefore be about €550 million, according to Dijsselbloem.
The United Kingdom had also firmly rejected the Commission's request, with the British financial secretary to the Treasury, Greg Clark, judging that this is unacceptable at a time when numerous governments are taking difficult decisions to reduce their public spending.
However, the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, has already warned that any negotiation on the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework would not be engaged in with the member states as long as the arrears of 2012 were not paid. The Parliament even considers that the sum of €11.2 billion “is not enough” and should be raised to €16 billion.
The European commissioner for the budget, Janusz Lewandowski, said that the Commission's request could hardly be a surprise - over recent years, the EU budget has been adopted at levels continually below the needs as expressed by the member states. This has created a snowball effect of invoices carried over to the next year. “There is a potential deficit in the 2007-2013 budget and we have judged, in support of the Parliament's request, that it is important to consolidate this potential deficit before beginning the new period”, a Commission spokesperson stated on Wednesday. He said that the Commission had examined “all possible options in the legal framework of the existing budget”. In his opinion, the proposal made last Wednesday “is the result of our reflection and our efforts”. He added that “these amounts do not correspond to invented amounts, but to invoices that have been sent to us and that today need to be paid. These invoices come from the member states. A solution needs to be found to this problem of the member states sending us invoices that we are unable to pay because they have not put enough money into the European budget.”
During the European Council, the French president, François Hollande, had suggested smoothing payment of the unpaid invoices over several years (our translation throughout). (LC/transl.fl)