Brussels, 15/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - Jacek Dominik, who is due to replace fellow Pole, EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski (who has taken up a new job as MEP), until October, made a good impression at his hearing at the EP's budget and budgetary control committee and his appointment, recommended by the Polish government, will be voted upon by the EP on Wednesday 16 July. Dominik sought principally to reassure MEPs about the problem of unpaid payment appropriations.
Dominik is currently the Polish under-secretary of state for finance. He demonstrated at the hearing that he knows his way around the EU budget and how it works, noting the EP's important role in the negotiations for the multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2014/2020 and the extra €11 billion in the 2014 budget to pay the outstanding bills, something that has never been seen before, he commented. Dominik recently headed the budget talks for the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU (in 2011) and said he was well aware of the problems encountered in the search for agreement.
The big issues Dominik will have to deal with are finding agreement on the EU's budget for 2015 and the amending budgets for 2014. He said there were outstanding bills of €21 billion to which a rapid solution was required (the Commission has already published a suggestion). He called for the EU Council of Ministers and the EP to adopt amending budgets for 2014 and a budget for 2015 with the proposed payment levels. He said he was aware of the work ahead of him but a change of mindset was required and the Council of Ministers must change its approach and move away from its past habit of reducing payment appropriations, although persuading the ministers of the merits of this will not be an easy task. In response to questions from MEPs, Dominik said that Poland had not always agreed with the Council of Ministers' position and had protested when it was a “cohesion country” (before it joined the EU) about the reductions in the structural funds.
The credibility of the EU institutions needs to be protected, said Dominik, and the amounts at stake are not spending for the future, but bills that the Commission will have to pay. He warned that, if a solution cannot be found, then there will be problems with national budgets, for small companies and local authorities, which have borrowed money on the understanding that they would be rapidly reimbursed. He talked about budget flexibility and the contingency margin, which the Commission suggests in draft amending budget number 3 for 2014 should provide €4 billion (see EUROPE 11121). Defending this idea, which has been criticised by a number of EU28 finance ministers, he said he felt this was an emergency situation.
Other areas of importance mentioned by Dominik included the proper management of EU funding: - 80% of the EU budget is managed by the member states and Dominik said the margin of error in the use of EU funding has to be reduced and value-added demonstrated to citizens; - the EU's future own resources system: the current system was set up 40 years ago and needs “a good dusting down”. Some own resources no longer fit the task, he said, promising to fully cooperate with the high-ranking group on own resources chaired by Mario Monti.
José Manuel Fernandes (EPP, Portugal) welcomed Dominik as a man of experience and asked him about the payment backlog. Dominik said the amending budgets for 2014 and the budget for 2015 needed to be adopted with the amounts of money suggested by the Commission, adding that the 2014 budget was at least €8 billion lower than the 2013 budget. In response to a question from Eider Gardiazabal Rubial (S&D, Spain), he said that, if one added up all the amending budgets for 2014, then the financial burden for the EU member states was €105 million, “not a huge sum”.
Are there not too many projects?, asked Bernd Kölmel (ECR, Germany), who wants countries to pay net amounts into the EU budget to reduce red tape and the size of the budget. Dominik said countries already have sovereign powers over the EU budget and decide on the spending they want. On average, the gross contribution to the EU budget from the member states is 1% of EU28 gross national income. Gérard Deprez (ALDE, Belgium) said he admired the ease with which Dominik seemed to move from being a budget guard dog at the Council to a good budget shepherd at the Commission. Dominik replied that people who had attended Council meetings in the past are well aware that his position was always very close to that of the Commission when it came to budget issues. (LC)