Brussels, 26/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament's Committee on Budgets (COBU) is to propose to the plenary the use of the "flexibility instrument" in order to exceed by nearly EUR 200 million the ceiling for external policy spending for the 2001 budget. Meeting as of Tuesday afternoon for three days of voting on the draft budget for 2001, the budgets committee is preparing to propose to the plenary, during the second October session, a budget that is more in line with European Commission proposals than the Council's project, with, however, two major differences: COBU hopes to increase external policy spending, but its formula is not that proposed by the Commission and COBU is expected to propose EUR 664 million for the Balkans and not 814 million as the Commission recommends.
The European Commission was proposing to reduce by EUR 300 million the ceiling of agricultural spending (Heading 1) and to increase external policy spending by as much, in order to finance the allocation of EUR 814 million for the Balkans. The Council had refused this proposal, reduced funding for the Balkans to EUR 614 million and proceeded to other cuts in external policies, including a EUR 150 million reduction of credit for the Meda Programme.
The budgets committee also considers the cut in the ceiling for agricultural spending should be rejected, while earmarking EUR 664 million to the Balkans, maintaining credits for Meda at the level proposed by the Commission and increasing funds on several budget lines, mainly for Asia and Latin America. In order to finance these different measures, Rapporteur Jutta Haug (PES, Germany) apparently managed to gather a consensus, before the beginning of voting, on the use of the flexibility instrument. The instrument, which has a maximum of EUR 200 million annually, is a sort of bonus which may be used, according to the terms of the May 1999 interinstitutional agreement, "for spending precisely identified which cannot be financed within the limits of the ceilings" set by this same agreement. It was used in the 2000 budget for Kosovo. The COBU is to propose that it is used, up to EUR 200 million, for Meda (150 of the 820 million for this programme), for the rapid reaction facility, for the interim civilian administration of Bosnia and Kosovo and for cooperation in the Baltic Sea region.
The EPP Group, for its part, proposed keeping EUR 1.7 billion in reserve as a security that the Commission pledges to reduce payment delays and to limit to two years the duration of validity of the commitments in the field of external policy. However, according to the rapporteur, it would not be very reasonable to reserve nearly one third of external policy credits. She proposed a compromise: that of placing EUR 750 million in reserve.
An agreement is also shaping up on the placing in reserve of funds requested by the Commission for 400 new posts in 2001. This could be lifted during the second reading, in December, if the Commission meets certain conditions: - limited commitments of two years, the presentation before 15 November of a plan for catching up current payment delays by end 2003; a pledge to present an estimate of its cost to COBU before any external policy initiative, and regular reports to the EP of the implementation of the Commission's internal reform.
Finally, COBU is aiming to refuse cuts in payment appropriations operated by the Council and to propose the reestablishment of credits in most cases at the level proposed by the Commission.