Brussels, 25/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament decided on Tuesday 25 November to reject the call for urgency on a Council regulation amending the European Communities' own resources system. Despite the call from the Council, Parliament will not, therefore, fast-track this text which would allow the United Kingdom to spread payment of its additional contribution (€2.1 billion) to the 2014 EU budget.
The amendments provide for the possibility for member states to make available adjustments of VAT resources and the additional resource in instalments, provided their overall amount is exceptionally high (excess of individual or a global threshold).
The request for urgent procedure inspired disbelief in Jean Arthuis (ALDE, France, chairman of the Parliament's budgets committee, for three reasons: 1) the issue “ate into” the Council's energy and intelligence during the failed conciliation process on 24 November, 2) the Commission proposed to affect €420 million in additional resources, not to settle bills but to return this sum to the EU countries, 3) as there is provision for the proposal's being retroactive, there is no reason for urgency.
Co-rapporteur Gérard Deprez (ALDE, Belgium) said that the urgency was not to grant payment facilities for certain countries. “There is an urgency to honour EU engagements to beneficiaries. There is an urgency to stabilise the pile-up of unpaid claims. There is an urgency to approve the budget for 2015”, he stated, opining that this call for urgent procedure could not be justified. He called for a multiannual plan to gradually eliminate unpaid bills to avoid “choking the budget”.
Janusz Lewandowski (EPP, Poland), also a co-rapporteur, spoke of a “paradox”. The proposal, he argued, slowed the process. “We are ready to give our opinion, but not in a fast-track procedure, but in a reasonable time” as part of a comprehensive solution to a delicate budget situation. “Honouring the legal engagements of the EU to pay the bills is a matter of credibility for the EU”, he said. (LC)