Brussels, 26/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - During a debate in Strasbourg on Tuesday 25 November concerning the result of the budgetary conciliation talks that expired on 17 November without agreement, MEPs called on the member states to muster the political will to tackle the growing pile of unpaid bills for 2014. Negotiations will resume after a new draft budget for 2015 is presented on Friday 28 November.
“We cannot understand how the Council can have spent so much more time on dealing with its own problem [of redistributing member states' GNI-based contributions] than on delivering a budget for the EU as a whole”, said 2014 amending budgets rapporteur Gérard Deprez (ALDE, Belgium). “We have an obligation to agree on a good budget for 2014 and 2015”, he added.
“Our proposal is easy to understand - we have to pay what we owe. We cannot delay payments to citizens, organisations, students (...) More than €28 billion in outstanding bills is awful”, said Eider Gardiazabal Rubial (S&D, Spain), one of the rapporteurs for the EU's 2015 budget. “Parliament is ready to consider any proposal to solve the problem of unpaid bills. What we need from the Council is the political will to do it”, she added.
“Nobody understands that we have the money, yet we cannot pay because member states prefer to pocket it themselves”, said the other rapporteur on the 2015 budget, Monika Hohlmeier (EPP, Germany), referring to the €5 billion in unexpected revenue, mostly from fines, that member states have been reluctant to use to pay the most urgent bills. According to the Commission, these currently total €4.7 billion.
Plan for paying off the bills. To solve the issue in the longer term, MEPs asked the Commission to present a plan gradually reducing the sum of unpaid bills - which has grown from €5 billion in 2010 to around €28 billion by the end of 2014. Deprez spoke of the need for the three institutions to agree on a plan to pay off the bills gradually. European Commissioner for the Budget and Human Resources Kristalina Georgieva believed that the Council and Parliament should agree on the European Commission having a payment plan showing how to reduce the number of unpaid bills. “We are not supposed to have unpaid bills in the EU. We are counting on the member states for a credible payment plan”, she said (our translation).
“In fact, only half of the two-party budgetary authority worked”, said Jean Arthuis (ALDE, France), chair of the budgets committee, adding that it was “unacceptable” that member states had sent their representatives to the talks without a mandate.
The Italian Presidency of the Council was also “disappointed” with the failure of the budgetary conciliation talks due to technical and political issues. It noted important progress on the most controversial aspects - like the use of the contingency margin in 2014 to address the exceptional situation of the unpaid bills. “We did not reach agreement on the level of use of this margin, but this could be worked on during the negotiations that are to open after the presentation of the new proposal for 2015”, said the Presidency - which also noted progress during the conciliation talks on the 2015 budget. “We have a common objective - to give Europe and its citizens a budget to attain the EU's priorities and guarantee the credibility of its institutions”, said the Italian Presidency (our translation).
Next steps. The Commission is to present its new 2015 budget proposal on 28 November - which leaves two weeks for negotiations between the Parliament and the Council before the Parliament votes on the agreed text at the last plenary session of the year.
If there is no deal on the 2015 budget by 1 January 2015, the EU will have to run on “provisional twelfths” - in other words, one twelfth of the 2014 amount or that of the 2015 draft budget, (whichever is lower), chapter by chapter, for each month. “This would put our citizens at risk, with many more difficulties to deliver resources when needed”, said Georgieva. (LC)