Brussels, 05/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - Member states which have to pay exceptionally high additional contributions to the EU budget (as a result of the annual review of their VAT and GNI data) will be able to request delaying payment until 1 September 2015. That is the aim of the regulation adopted by the Council on 18 December at the request, initially, of the United Kingdom. The regulation seeks to avoid having the annual adjustments create too heavy a financial burden on member states, particularly towards the end of the year. Without this change, the member states would have had to pay their additional contributions by 1 December 2014.
Under the terms of Article 10 paragraphs 4-8 of Council Regulation 1150/2000, the Commission calculates and informs the member states of adjustments brought to VAT-based and GNI-based own resources (VAT - value added tax - resources and GNI - gross national income - complementary resource) in time for the member states to pay these adjustments to the Commission account on the first working day of December.
In exceptional circumstances, the adjustments may result in very high sums of money, for some states substantially exceeding two monthly twelfths, to be provided to VAT resources and the complementary resource and in total, for all member states, half the overall sum of the monthly twelfths (or around €5 billion). The new regulation allows member states to request deferment of making these sums available until the first working day of September of the following tax year, provided certain conditions are met. Any member state which decides to avail itself of this possibility must submit a request to the Commission well in advance of the first working day of December indicating the date or dates that the adjustments are to be made available, this is to ensure efficient management of EU cash-flow needs. Any delay in making the adjustments available on the date or dates submitted to the Commission will result in interest payments.
In 2014, the overall threshold was reached, so every member state was entitled to delay payment of its contribution. The UK, along with Bulgaria, France, Italy, Cyprus, Malta and Slovenia, submitted deferment requests to the Commission before 1 December of last year.
Other member states credited the Commission with a net sum of €4.1 billion (around mid-December), to be added to the €420 million in planned additional traditional own resources. In line with the agreement reached on the EU budget, the Council and the European Parliament adopted amending budget No 6/2014, incorporating the additional revenue of €4.5 billion into the EU's 2014 budget. It was agreed to reduce all member states' GNI contributions in line with their share in the European Union GNI. (LC)