Brussels, 25/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - Unsurprisingly, in Strasbourg on Wednesday 25 November, the European Parliament adopted the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2016, as approved by the conciliation committee (see EUROPE 11437 and 11431). The Parliament adopted the 2016 budget by 516 votes in favour, 179 votes against and eight abstentions, and it was then enacted into a legislative text by President Martin Schulz.
The total amount of commitment appropriations in the 2016 budget is €155 billion, with a margin under the upper limits of the multi-annual financial framework (MAFF) for 2016 of €2.3 billion in commitment appropriations. The total level of payment appropriations for 2016 stands at €143.9 billion, an increase of 1.8% on the 2015 budget. The flexibility instrument has been used to provide the sum of €1.5 billion in commitment appropriations for heading 3 (security and citizenship) and €24.0 million in commitment appropriations for heading 4 (global Europe), under the measures to respond to the refugee crisis.
Compared to the Commission's initial proposal, there are increases of €31.8 million for the commitment appropriations for Horizon 2020, €14.2 million for the programme COSME (improving access to funding for SMEs) and €6.6 million for Erasmus+. For heading 3, security, the level of commitments has been set at €4.052 billion, with no margin under the upper limit of expenditure in the heading and with the mobilisation of €1.5 billion from the flexibility instrument.
Flexibility instrument. The EP approved the decision to mobilise the flexibility instrument, due to the fact that “the ceilings for headings 3 and 4 for the financial year 2016 do not allow for the adequate funding of emergency measures in the field of migration and refugees”. It therefore approved the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument for the amount of €1.530 billion in commitment appropriations. In payments, the credits corresponding to the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument stand as follows: €734.2 million in 2016, €654.2 million in 2017, €83.0 million in 2018 and €58.6 million in 2019.
2015. The EP approved the Council's position on the draft amending budget no. 8/2015, which reduces by €9.4 billion the contributions of the member states based on GNI (gross national income). However, it stresses that the member states have not yet honoured the financial commitments they made to contribute to the trust fund for Africa, the trust fund for Syria and the agencies of the United Nations assisting the refugees (according to the Commission, the member states were behind by €2.3 billion at the start of November 2015).
Satisfecit in plenary
“I think I can say that in a particularly tight context, the Parliament has done its job well”, the president of the committee on budgets, Jean Arthuis (ALDE, France), said during the plenary debate the day before. The EP wanted this budget to be used for growth, employment and to respond to the challenges of migration and hosting refugees. However, “tied into a multi-annual financial framework which was adopted in December 2013, our budget leaves us unable to face a major crisis”, said Arthuis. He said that by 2017, unpaid bills would once again be stacking up on the Commission's desk at “unsustainable” levels. He stressed the need to “revisit budgetary perspectives” at the mid-term review of the multi-annual financial framework.
José Manuel Fernandes (EPP, Portugal), the rapporteur on the general budget for 2016, spoke of a 2016 budget for employment and solidarity. He stressed the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument and the margins used up in several headings (1a, 1b, 3 and 4), notably to resolve the refugee crisis.
The rapporteur on the budget of the other institutions, Gérard Deprez (ALDE, Belgium), described the EP's budget for 2006 as tight. Notwithstanding an exceptional allowance of €15,000 to improve the security of the buildings and the security of the IT systems, the budget of the European Parliament for 2016 is up just 1.6% on 2015. As regards the obligation to reduce staff levels by 5% between 2013 and 2017, the EP will achieve this target by 2019, in accordance with a specific timetable to run from 2017. The EP will “make the required effort by excluding the temporary posts of the political groups from the scope of application of this reduction obligation”, he said, adding that reducing the capacity for action of the political groups by reducing their staff numbers “would be the wrong solution which would only reinforce the bureaucracy and technocracy which are in some cases overwhelming in certain European institutions”.
Pierre Gramegna, the Luxembourg finance minister, raised the decision to double, in 2016, the amount available to refugees, from €2 billion in the initial budget to €4 billion, for actions to be carried out internally, for the refugees, on the borders, on border posts or even in the countries of origin. The EU has earmarked €19 billion for growth and employment, including €1 billion in particular for the youth employment initiative. In addition, the agreement will provide the money needed to reduce delays and backlogs, which will fall next year from €17 billion to €2 billion, a much lower figure.
The Commissioner for the Budget, Kristalina Georgieva, said that for the payment appropriations (€143.9 billion), that this was 1.8% higher than in 2015, with +11% for heading 1a (growth), +57% for heading 3 (security) and +36% for heading 4 (external action). As regards the margins, there is €2.3 billion in commitments and €1.9 billion in payments. “Facing the uncertainties of tomorrow, we ought to have space to act”, she stressed. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)