Brussels, 25/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - Next Wednesday, the European Commission will adopt its proposal of allocating an additional 971 million euro this year to combat the BSE epidemic. The Commissioner for the budget, Michaele Schreyer, confirmed this sum on Tuesday to the members of the European Parliament's Committee on Budgets. The Commissioner also detailed the distribution of the credits that will be proposed in the "additional amending budget", currently being finalised: 1) 700 million euro for the purchase of cattle earmarked for slaughter; 2) 238 million euro for the intervention purchasing system; 3) 33 million euro for the additional co-funding of screening tests.
The Commission is multiplying signals to say that it does not want spending to go beyond the available margin this year for agricultural expenditure, and to stress, therefore, that should the mad cow crisis turn out to be more costly than expected, savings would have to be considered in other sectors of agricultural expenditure. A Commission spokesperson stressed a few days ago that, "as the idea of a review of the financial perspectives can be ruled out, the alternative, if more money is required, is either not to grant more money to this crisis, or to spend less elsewhere, or use the savings that would be made on certain markets". The available margin in the agricultural budget is 1.23 billion (before deducting the 971 million euro). Member States set this ceiling in Berlin in 1999, and there "would have to be a review of the financial perspectives" to exceed it. The Fifteen confirmed in Nice that they did not intend exceeding that ceiling.