In Brussels on Wednesday 31 August, the members of the committee on budgets of the European Parliament spoke out against the budgetary cuts made by the Council in its July position on the draft EU budget for 2017 (EUROPE 11598, 11597).
A trialogue (Council, Commission and EP) on the 2017 budget will be held this Thursday 1 September. The Council proposed reducing the draft 2017 budget by €1.28 billion in commitments (-0.81%) and by €1.1 billion in payments (-0.82%).
"I firmly believe that, following tomorrow's trialogue with the Council, my good mood after three weeks of holidays will change. We will be asking the Council for justifications for the cuts it has made", said the EP's rapporteur on the 2017 budget, Jens Geier (S&D, Germany). He acknowledged that the cuts made by the Council were lower than in recent years. According to the Commission's position, the 2017 budget will rise, compared to 2016, in all headings but heading 4 ('EU in the world'). Geier said that he would make a proposal to the plenary to bring back the amounts initially proposed by the Commission for heading 4 in the draft 2017 budget.
Siegfried Muresan (EPP, Romania) said that he understood that the budget was a tight one, given the current crises. "However, what we cannot understand is what the Council is planning to do with the proposed cuts, particularly in heading 1a on growth". He said that there was a risk of delays in payments, in particular to pay for the programmes under the cohesion policy.
Defence. For defence matters, Jean Arthuis pointed out that the Commission was proposing preparatory action (on research into defence matters), "but is it up to the scale of the task?". He said that it was possible that the next American President will break with standard practice and that Europe would have to wake up to the fact that it needs to acquire a certain form of capabilities and autonomy in order to ensure its own security and defence. "The fact that the Commission is putting up €25 million for preparatory action and eating into the envelope earmarked for pilot projects and preparatory actions to do so is not satisfactory. The €25 million should be taken from other resources and the initial envelope should be reinstated", said the chair of the committee on budgets of the EP. "We can't work on the basis of the budgets we have at the moment", said rapporteur Geier, who called for a debate, as part of the mid-term review of the MFF, on the ins and outs of this defence action. He suggested that the action be paid for beyond the upper limits of the MFF and, if the Council wishes to go further, it will have to "put its hand in its pocket". The Commission is proposing €25 million for 2017 and a total of €80 million over three years for this preparatory action in the field of defence.
Cuts to funding for cohesion. The members of the committee on budgets, including Muresan, protested afresh at the Commission's proposal to reduce payments under the cohesion policy by 23.5% in 2017. However, the rapporteur stressed that this criticism should be levelled not at "Brussels" but at the capitals, which have delays in the implementation of the operational programmes. He proposes going with the amounts proposed by the Commission. The Commission's representative acknowledged that the Commission and the EP shared a concern regarding the pace at which the new programmes under the cohesion policy are being implemented. The drop in the level of payment appropriations proposed for 2017 under heading 1b (cohesion) "reflects the estimates of needs on the basis of the forecasts of the member states and the Commission's calculations", said the European Commission. "We will have to get to cruising speed as quickly as possible", the Commission's representative stressed.
Link between the 2017 budget and the mid-term review of the MFF. Rapporteur Geier called for a debate with the Council on the link between the 2017 budget and the mid-term review of the multi-annual financial framework 2014-2020.
Heading 3 'security and citizenship'. The EP supports making full use of the budgetary flexibility (flexibility instrument to the tune of €530 million and mobilisation of the contingency margin to the tune of €1.164 billion) to manage the refugee crisis.
Youth employment. At this stage, the Commission has not earmarked any funds in 2017 to continue the 'youth employment' initiative. The European Commission will look at what to do with this initiative. "We will discuss the evaluation of the initiative and make a decision on the basis of the assessment fed in", Geier said. If the Commission's assessment is positive, the required funding will have to be made available, he added. "In the framework of the mid-term review of the MFF, the budgetary resources to pay for this initiative will have to be found", Muresan said.
Agriculture. In response to a question put by Marian-Jean Marinescu (EPP, Romania), the Commission representative said that the anti-crisis aid package for farmers (€500 million) will be included in the amending letter "to be prepared in the next few weeks", assessing the needs for agricultural funding. "We will see whether an adjustment will be necessary for the common agriculture policy in 2017", the Commission representative said.
The chair of the committee on budgets of the European Parliament, Jean Arthuis (ALDE, France), stressed that there was an impression of "powerlessness in the budgetary response to the various crises". (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)