Brussels, 09/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - The “unacceptable” cuts proposed by the Council for the EU budget 2016 reduce the funding available for migration, compromise research and undermine the EU's role in the world, the MEPs stated in Strasbourg on Tuesday 8 September.
The Luxembourg Presidency of the Council presented the position of the member states on the draft EU budget for next year. “If the Council insists on these cuts, there won't be an EU budget for 2016. These cuts are unacceptable”, said the rapporteur on the 2016 budget, José Manuel Fernandes (EPP, Portugal). He added: “The Council's cuts are unacceptable, incomprehensible and inconsistent. The Council cannot get past the national egotisms of the member states. The countries who demand solidarity regarding cohesion funds should display some solidarity towards migrants. Solidarity is a two-way street”. Fernandes particularly criticised the cuts made by the Council under the EU in the world heading (-€163 million in commitments, and -€450 million in payments).
Gérard Deprez (ALDE, Belgium), who is also a rapporteur on the 2016 budget, argued that the EU needed sufficient budgetary resources to allow it to resolve the refugee crisis. The Commission had planned to boost the relevant European budget by €169 million, “but that will not be enough”, he warned. “If Jean-Claude Juncker is proposing to add 120,000 people to the resettlement programme for 40,000 already in place, a budget of €960 million will have to be mobilised to comply with the provisions of the regulation on the asylum, migration and integration fund (AMIF), which stipulates €6,000 for each person transferred”, Deprez added. He also expressed his opposition to the cuts in the funding for research and interconnection in Europe for energy, telecommunications and transport.
The Council's position provides for €153.27 billion in commitment appropriations and €142.14 billion in payment appropriations (or respectively €563.6 million and €1.4 billion less than the Commission's original proposal).
The European Commission states that the budgetary impact of the migration package (presented on Wednesday: see other article) and of the package of support for farmers will be taken into account in the autumn amending letter, to be adopted in mid-October. This amending letter will include the higher-than-expected surplus in the agricultural sector.
The Luxembourg finance minister, Pierre Gramegna, president-in-exercise of the Council, stressed that the Council's cuts had been made with respect to the Commission's proposals, which themselves constitute considerable increases for most of the issues in question. Under the 'external action' heading, for instance, “we have payment appropriations which are up by 22.45%. And so when we talk of cuts, they are not cuts relative to the budget of the previous year, but reductions relative to amounts which have increased considerably”, Gramegna explained. He hopes to set in place “frank and constructive cooperation” in order to reach a compromise which will be particularly tricky as “we are well aware that other expenditure awaits us due to situations which are growing worse and unexpected events”. He is fully aware that the migration package “cannot be implemented for free”. On the agriculture policy, there will also be resources to mobilise. “Therefore, the budget will be difficult to conclude”, he admitted.
Shortly beforehand, Gramegna took pains to stress that the EU is “one of the main donors of funds in the Syrian region”, with €855 million in humanitarian aid allocated to refugees from Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey for 2016. Additionally, commitment appropriations of €150 million for the resettlement of refugees in favour of Greece and Italy for the resettlement of 40,000 refugees have been accepted by the Council. As for migration policy, this will have commensurate funding, as the funds earmarked for AMIF (Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund) are to be increased by 35% compared to 2015 (+€515 million). The same will apply to humanitarian aid, which will see its payment appropriations up 16% on 2015, to stand at €1 billion. (Lionel Changeur)