Brussels, 25/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - An emergency budget meeting will be held in May, probably on Monday 6, between the presidents of the three EU institutions to try and get the talks moving again on the EU's multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2014-2020 (see EUROPE 10832). Attending the meeting will be the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, and the Irish deputy prime minister, Eamon Gilmore. The Irish Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers is hoping to conclude the MFF talks for 2014-2020 during its presidency, in other words before the end of June. It is hard to say at this point whether this is doable, given that the final talks have not yet begun despite agreement being reached in principle at the European summit in February.
The head of the European Parliament's budget committee, Alain Lamassoure (EPP, France) says the Council of Ministers is refusing to make any commitment to pay off the outstanding invoices from 2012, so the three-way talks on the MFF have had to be delayed. He explains that, under the treaties, in the event of problems in the budget talks, a meeting of the presidents of the three EU institutions shall be convened to seek a compromise.
After consulting the heads of the political groups, Schulz chaired a “contact group” on the MFF, which unanimously decided that a three-way meeting should be held on Thursday 25 April. The contact group says the only way to resolve the deadlock is to use the bidding mechanism of Article 324 of the EU treaty, whereby the president of the Commission can suggest to the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU and the president of the EP to meet up to facilitate the budget talks if it is felt to be necessary. Lamassoure said they had agreed that the three-way summit would take place on Monday 6 May. The EP budgets committee will meet on 7 May to discuss progress on draft amending budget 2 (on unpaid invoices).
The EP has said since March that no talks will be held with the member states on the MFF for 2014-2020 unless the unpaid invoices brought forward from 2012 are paid off. The Commission has asked for a further €11.2 billion to this effect. The General Affairs Council challenged this amount on Monday 22 April, where it was queried by the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Austria and Denmark. At the General Affairs Council meeting, Gilmore said that the Council was prepared to work as a matter of urgency on the extension to the 2013 budget (to pay the outstanding 2012 invoices) in order to reach agreement over the next few weeks on a big amending budget to deal with clearly justified payment needs. The MFF contact group says Gilmore's statement does not go far enough. Lamassoure says it amounts to “nice words” that promise nothing. He says the General Affairs Council is, in any case, not the right body for dealing with the EU's 2013 budget, which is a matter for the Ecofin Council. It's €11.2 billion or nothing, warned Lamassoure.
On the specific MFF requests from the European Parliament, the EP rapporteur, Reimer Böge (EPP, Germany), criticises the Council for its inability to come to an understanding among the member states and says that this is delaying the start of talks. The EP wants greater flexibility between financial years and an update clause to enable a mid-term review of payment ceilings. He said he hadn't seen any movement from the Council on this, apart from a little in the way of flexibility.
Given the circumstances, the EP says that it is not possible to start the MFF talks.
Lamassoure warned that all three EU institutions would have to make concessions. The Council will have to accept that an extra €11.2 billion will have to be added to the 2013 budget, the EP will have to concede that no more money will be forthcoming even though everyone knows there will be greater need for finance, and the Commission will have to accept a freeze on the amounts allocated in 2013 and make the cash last the entire year. The upper limit on expenditure has been set at €143 billion for the 2013 budget.
Lamassoure again said that it is unacceptable for some countries to challenge the amounts requested by the Commission, because the Commission's figures are the requests for payment from member states' governments for action that has been agreed to.
The European Parliament has threatened to reject the deal struck by the EU's leaders on the MFF for 2014-2020 if the unpaid invoices from 2012 are not paid off. A vote is scheduled for the July plenary. Lamassoure said he didn't think it would get that far, but if the EP did reject the deal, that would not be the end of the world. He said that the next European Parliament (elected in May 2014) would have something to say on the matter, but agreement is still possible if the EP is given a cast-iron guarantee that the €11.2 billion will be paid, in which case it would agree to it being paid in a number of instalments.
In order to pay off the outstanding invoices, France will have to find a further €1.8 billion in 2013, Germany nearly €2 billion and the UK €1.2 billion.
Ninety percent of the EU budget is financed by the member states, explained Alain Lamassoure, calling for the EU to be granted “own resources”. At the moment, Germany absolutely opposes any form of own resources, but Lamassoure said that the country was in the middle of an electoral campaign and the introduction of genuine own resources could not be avoided in the long term.
Lewandowski is worried. Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski expressed concern about the delayed MFF talks: “I am concerned as time is running out to provide Europe with a stable, secure financial framework for the next seven years. Our businesses, scientists, NGOs, and towns and regions badly need EU funding as member states are reducing national investment to a trickle and banks reduce their lending. Therefore, the European Commission will keep sparing no effort to bring all parties to the negotiating table in the shortest possible time. We will do our utmost to break the current inter-institutional deadlock; we owe it to half a billion Europeans. We are running out of time!” (LC/transl.fl)