The European Commission is expected to present a new draft budget for 2019 on 30 November, after the end of the budgetary conciliation procedure (see EUROPE 12141).
European Parliament Budget Committee Chairman Jean Arthuis (ALDE, French) regretted on Wednesday 21 November in Brussels that the Council had been “inflexible” in the negotiations on the EU's 2019 budget.
MEPs of this committee welcomed the efforts of the European Commissioner for the Budget, Günther Oettinger, to find a compromise, in particular through the use of Article 15.3 of the new Financial Regulation, which allows, for research appropriations, “when not all the appropriations have been committed in year N-2, to use them to supplement the appropriations of year N”, explained Mr Arthuis. “We have faced inflexibility on the part of the Council”, he said regretfully.
The Council and the Commission have tried to find new money to compensate for the loss of revenue of 400 million resulting from the carry-over of Horizon 2020 appropriations from 2017. But nothing has changed regarding Article 15.3, except the establishment of a high-level working group between EU institutions on Article 15.3, complained Mr Arthuis.
The Commission had proposed to use around 200 million in 2019 for research, out of the 400 million not used in 2017. The Council was concerned that this would set a precedent with unknown consequences for the future.
The procedure restarts on 30 November. The Commission could present a new draft budget for 2019 on Friday 30 November, which would be presented to the Committee on Budgets on 3 December. Then one or more budget trilogues would be organised on 4, 5 and perhaps 6 December, with a view to finding a compromise. EU ambassadors could approve the agreement on 7 December and the Council on 10 December. The 2019 budget could thus be voted on in Strasbourg at the same time.
The rapporteur on the 2019 budget, Daniele Viotti (S&D, Italian), warned that the EP would not accept a new draft budget without the Article 15.3 solution. This firmness is shared by the other members. He denounced the arrogance of the Council, which did not wish to negotiate on this article. He stressed, as did other MEPs, that what was also at stake was “the credibility of the EP when we negotiate on the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework”.
José Manuel Fernandes (EPP, Portuguese) said that the Council was not complying with the Treaty. The EP does not want these 413 million euros to be lost. He criticized the German and French Finance Ministers for “not wanting to use the ‘research’ appropriations”.
165 billion. The preliminary agreement on the 2019 budget covered a total budget of 165 billion euros, or about 1% of the EU's gross national income (GNI). Mr Fernandes argued that the Council was hoping for failure and, therefore, the use of the ‘provisional twelfths system’, and that it was thus doing a favour to populists by causing disagreement between EU institutions.
The Commission representative stressed what the EP had already achieved with this preliminary agreement on a budget of 165 billion euros and clarified that the use of Article 15.3 was a possibility, not an obligation. But he supported the use of the article. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)