Brussels, 28/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - On 28 November, the European Commission adopted a new, more realistic, draft EU budget for 2015 on Friday following the failure of the three-week conciliation process between the European Parliament and the Council on 17 November (see EUROPE 11199).
“Our new budget proposal takes into account the views of the European Parliament and the Council, thus providing a sound basis for the renewal of negotiations”, said Budget and Human Resources Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva. She hopes that it will “pave the way for agreement on the 2015 EU budget and on the pending draft amending budgets for 2014, which we have proposed to help tackle the growing problem of unpaid bills”.
The new draft budget for 2015 makes provision for a total of €145.2 billion in commitments (up 1.8% on 2014) and €141.3 billion in payments (up 0.7% on 2014). The proposal has been transmitted to the European Parliament and the Council and with a view to continuing trialogue negotiations on Tuesday 2 December and the following day.
Compared with its initial proposal, the Commission has reduced payments by €700 million. The final “offer” from the Council was €144.63 billion in commitments and €140.77 billion in payments. There remains a gap of only €500 million, therefore, in payments.
The main stumbling block in negotiations, however, is the amending budgets for 2014. These draft amending budgets would come at “no extra cost to national budgets, because of unexpected revenue, mostly from competition fines”, the Commission points out. The Commission is asking for the addition of €3.8 billion in payments in 2014, compared with €4.7 billion in its initial proposal. The draft amending budgets for 2014 seek to honour financial commitments in a number of areas (research, education, support for SMEs) and to cover higher than usual requests for cohesion policy reimbursement from member states. The Commission will play the role of “facilitator” in these budget discussions.
Timetable. The new draft budget will be negotiated in trialogue with the aim of finding an agreement that will allow the Parliament officially to adopt the 2015 budget at its last plenary session of the year. If no agreement can be reached before 31 December 2014, from 1 January 2015 the EU would operate under the system of “provisional twelfths”. In short, the budget appropriations for each chapter of the budget would be funded monthly by one twelfth of its 2014 budget or the relevant amount in the 2015 draft budget, whichever is less. The system of twelfths “would have consequences for the perception of the ability of the EU to act. In particular, it would put on hold any new initiative or body that did not have a budget for 2014”, the Commission warns. (LC)