Brussels, 14/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - As EUROPE goes to press, discussions between the Council and the European Parliament appeared to be going on without end during the evening of Friday 14 November in Brussels, due to the difficulty involved in finding a compromise on a budgetary package consisting of three component parts (EUROPE 11196): - the amending budgets for 2014 to reduce the amount of unpaid invoices; the 2015 budget; the proposal on own resources, which follows revision of the calculation methods used for assessing Gross National Product (GNP) and VAT, which calculates the contributions made by member states to the 2014 EU budget.
In its budget format, the Ecofin Council prepared a conciliation meeting on Friday at 10.30 am (EP/Council).
During the debate, certain so-called cohesion policy countries (Hungary, Czech Republic, etc.) said that there was no reason to accept the proposal on own resources as long as they had not received a satisfactory response regarding the amending budgets for 2014. It should be pointed out that the proposal on own resources should enable the United Kingdom to stagger payments of the additional sum demanded of €2.1 billion up until 1 September 2015. France insisted that it be provided with a, “complete postponement till 2015 of the refund”. France is expected to receive €1 billion. Technical questions still surround the accounting methods for making corrections and defining transactions such as payments or refunds.
A lot of countries (France, Hungary, Ireland, Spain, Greece, Finland, Slovenia and Latvia, etc.) criticised the amending agricultural letter. The Commission is proposing to reduce agricultural funding by €397 million, in an effort to make transfers to other action areas (Ebola, Syria, etc.). €344.3 million out of the 433 million contained in the agricultural crisis reserve fund was used to fund support measures in response to the Russian embargo on EU food products.
2014 amending budgets. Some net contributor countries (Germany, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Netherlands and Denmark) opposed the Commission proposal to use the “contingency margin” of €4 billion to pay some of the 2014 invoices. France and the United Kingdom did not intervene on the subject. This is undoubtedly a negotiating tactic because their priority involves the proposal on own resources.
France and the United Kingdom welcomed the taking into account (in the presidency compromise) of the special instruments (flexibility instrument, Solidarity Fund, emergency aid reserve, Globalisation Adjustment Fund) that were below the payment appropriations ceiling. Sweden and France, in particular, called for redeployment and to see what parts of the invoices (the Commission mentioned €6.2 billion) could be paid in 2014 or delayed until 2015.
2015 budget. Several net contributor countries, such as Germany and France, called for budgetary discipline and the Council's September position to be respected.
Conciliation by 1.30pm had still proved fruitless, because the European Parliament had requested, before discussing the 2015 budget, an agreement on the amending budgets for 2014. The Council had allowed for up to 7pm on Friday to find a compromise on the amending budgets and the proposal on own resources. By 8pm, the Council had still not reached an agreement. If the conciliation process is not finished by 17 November, the Commission will have to submit a new draft budget for the 2015 tax year. (LC)