Brussels, 28/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is to propose to the Council and to Parliament the use of the "flexibility instrument" for Serbia in 2001, declared a Commission spokesperson on Thursday. Once the situation has been "clarified" in Serbia, the Commission will propose using this instrument for a sum that has not yet been determined. In May, with its proposal of a multiannual programme (2000-2006) for the Balkans, the Commission had suggested devoting, in 2001, EUR 40 million for support to the democratic forces in Serbia, while specifying that it would propose using the flexibility instrument "if Serbia became democratic in 2001". The so-called flexibility instrument is a form of bonus for a maximum of EUR 200 million annually that may be used outside the strict spending ceilings set by the EU financial framework. Mobilisation of this instrument must be jointly decided by the two branches of the budgetary authority, Council and Parliament, on a proposal by the Commission.
Budget 2001 is being discussed by the Council and Parliament (see EUROPE of 27 September, p.9). The Parliament's Committee on Budgets, which met on Tuesday and Wednesday to elaborate the position to be submitted to the EP for its first reading of the draft budget end October, discussed aid to Serbia without coming to any fixed position as no agreement was reached. The parliamentary committee called for several of its representatives to meet the Council and the Commission next week, for a "trilogue", in order to discuss this question. The date of the three-way discussion has not been set, and it is not certain it will be held next week.
The possibility of using the flexibility instrument for Serbia will be discussed all the more as the position of the EP budgetary committee is, for the time being, to use this instrument as a whole, in 2001, to eliminate the cut of EUR 150 million operated by the Council in the Meda programme for cooperation with Mediterranean countries, and for some other measures. The budgetary committee has in fact adopted the proposal made along these lines by its rapporteur, Jutta Haug. The European Commission plans to propose using the flexibility instrument for Serbia, as it had suggested in May, and excludes using it for Media. Such is the response that the Commission gives for now to the claim made by the EP.
Furthermore, the budgets committee largely followed during its meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday the proposals made by its rapporteur for the 2001 budget as a whole (see above-mentioned EUROPE). The Committee on Budgets should therefore, and above all, invite the plenary to place in reserve, under certain conditions, the 400 new posts requested by the Commission, and to also place in reserve 700 million from the Heading 4-External Policy, also in the form of a guarantee for reform.