Brussels, 27/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 26 May, the Council attended a meeting with the European Parliament and the Commission to discuss the sensitive issue of the outstanding bills in the EU budget.
The Council and Parliament took note of the Commission's forecasts, according to which the backlog of outstanding payment claims for the 2007-2013 cohesion programmes could be reduced to around €2.0 billion by the end of 2016. At the end of 2014, the total amount of unpaid cohesion policy bills for 2007-2013 hit a peak of €24.7 billion.
In a press release, the Council stresses that the “difficult decisions” taken by the two arms of the budgetary authority (Council and EP) have helped to stabilise and reduce the backlog. In 2013, for instance, the Council and the Parliament approved an increase of €11.8 billion in payment appropriations. At the end of last year, the two arms of the budgetary authority agreed to increase the payments in the EU budget for 2014 and to mobilise the contingency margin to reduce the amount outstanding. The planned reduction of the total invoices is also due to the significant drop in payment claims under the cohesion programmes for 2007-2013.
Early warning system
The three institutions took note of the draft declaration on the payment plan to 2015-2016 (this draft declaration was agreed on 19 May between the Latvian Presidency and representatives of the Parliament and the Commission). The draft declaration includes a commitment on the part of the budgetary authority of the EU to phase out the backlog of payment claims for the 2007-2013 cohesion programmes and to ensure that no similar accumulation of bills happens again in the future. The Commission is called upon to closely examine the implementation of the 2014-2020 programmes and to set in place an early warning system.
On Tuesday 26 May, the budgets committee of the European Parliament approved this draft declaration on the payment plan 2015-2016. (Lionel Changeur)