Brussels, 20/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 20 January, the European Commission adopted a draft amending budget (2/2015) to transfer €21 billion in unused credit appropriations from 2014 into the budgets for 2015-2017.
These are shared management funds (rural development, cohesion policy, etc). In this case, it is the member states rather than the services of the Commission which select the beneficiaries and manage the expenditure.
The Commission explains that this “one-off” transfer of funds will guarantee that the money continues to be available for the programmes which could not be finalised in 2014.
The draft budget does not require new funds, as the proposal does not affect the total amounts earmarked over the period 2014-2020. The same procedure was applied at the start of the two previous budgetary cycles (in 2001 for the period 2000-2006 and in 2008 the period 2007-2013).
In addition to the draft budget, however, the Commission also presented a proposal to modify the multi-annual financial framework 2014-2020 precisely in order to make this transfer of funds possible. The ceiling for commitment appropriations in 2014 will be decreased by €21 billion and the ceilings for credit appropriations for the years 2015 to 2017 will be increased commensurately. Under the EU budgetary rules, the revision of the regulation on the multi-annual financial framework 2014-2020 has to be adopted before 1 May 2015. (LC)