Brussels, 13/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - As we were going to press in the evening of Friday 13 November, the European institutions were trying to agree on the main aspects of the EU's budget for 2016.
The Council of Ministers and representatives of the European Parliament (EP) were able to accept the Amending Letter Number 2 for 2016, foreseeing additional appropriations (+€1.55 billion in commitments and +€1.42 bn in payments) for dealing with the refugee crisis. Some €1.5 billion of commitments and €710 million in payments will come from the Flexibility Instrument to finance these measures in 2016.
Meeting as the Budget Council, the member states insisted on keeping a margin for manoeuvre in the budget for 2016 to allow the EU to deal with unforeseen circumstances. They reaffirmed the need to respect the agreement on the European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI). During its vote at the end of October, the European Parliament added €300 million for the European research programme Horizon 2020 and €100 million for the infrastructure interconnection of Europe, to restore funding borrowed from this budget heading to launch the Juncker Plan. The EP is calling for mobilisation of the contingency reserve for this €400 million. The Council refuses to foresee any extra fresh cash (the compromise foresaw the redeployment of existing appropriations). The Council wants the December 2013 interinstitutional agreement to be respected, foreseeing that the EU institutions and its agencies should reduce their staff by 5% from 2013 to 2017. The Council has cut its staff by 4.5% and the Commission by 4% in terms of authorised posts at the start of 2013. The EP, however, is planning to increase staff by 0.4% over the same period. The EP is calling for security spending and political groups' staff not to be counted in the 5% staff cuts calculations.
The EP would like to add €150 million for the Youth Employment Initiative, but the Council disagrees because: 1) the agreement on this matter is for the €6 billion funding to focus on 2014 and 2015; 2) there is already €1 billion in payments for 2016; and 3) the Commission is due to assess the initiative in 2016. Under the 'external action' heading, the EP wants the full margin to be used up and to go even further below (-€150 million, by mobilising the contingency reserve), which the Council refuses to accept. The plans presented by the European Commission foresee a margin of €1.5 billion for the total payment appropriations, but the Council wants this to be only €340 million because it wants special instruments like the Solidarity Fund to be included in the financial framework.
2015. On Wednesday, the Council adopted its negotiating position for Draft Amending Budget No. 8 for 2015 (surplus of €9.4 billion). The EP wants the money generated by an unexpected rise in income (€2.3 billion) to be used to deal with the refugee crisis, but the Council is opposed to this. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)