On Tuesday 20 June, the committee on budgets of the European Parliament approved draft amending budget no. 2/2017, which includes the 2016 surplus, in the amount of €6.405 billion, in the budget. Parliament will take a position in plenary in July.
The MEPs note with great concern the considerable under-spend of €4.889 billion in 2016, even though amending budget no. 4/2016 already reduced the level of payment appropriations by €7.28 billion.
They stress that the very low implementation level of the payment appropriations in the field of the cohesion policy (heading 1b) is partly due to inaccuracies in the member states' forecasts and delays in appointing the management and certification authorities at national level.
Lastly, the budgets committee highlights a negative impact from the depreciation of the pound sterling against the euro, which is one of the main causes of the shortfall in revenues of €1.5 billion under own resources. The report by Jens Geier (S&D, Germany) on draft amending budget no. 2/2017 was adopted by 23 votes to 2 with no abstentions. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)