Brussels, 28/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - A meeting between the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council is to be held on Thursday in order to examine possible solutions for allowing the Parliament to take a decision, before 1 May, on the adjustment of financial perspectives regarding the "under implementation" in 2000 of over EUR 14 billion in appropriations allocated to the Structural Funds. This deadline is set by the inter-institutional agreement of 1999.
During this "trilogue", the European Parliament is expected for two reasons to challenge the way the Commission plans to transfer part of the unused allocations (EUR 6.152 billion), over the period 2002/2006 (see EUROPE of 14 March). It is opposed to the linear carry-over of these funds and suggests more concentrated breakdown of funds over the years 2004 and 2005 (EUR 2.293 billion for these two years and nothing in 2002). It also reproaches the Commission for limiting "re-budgeting" to commitment appropriations and not to take payment appropriations into account. The EP notes that there is a margin of EUR 5.545 billion in payment appropriations to be used up. Excluding the need for rebudgeting payment funds appears to run counter to the spirit of the interinstitutional agreement, said the parliamentary committee on budgets in a report on this subject by Joan Colom I Naval (PES, Spain), adopted on 22 March. EUROPE recalls that, out of EUR 26.297 billion devoted to Structural Funds in 2000, under-implementation corresponds to EUR 14.189 billion. The Commission envisages carrying over EUR 8.037 billion to the 2001 budget and sharing out the remaining EUR 6.152 billion over the budgetary years 2002 to 2006.
Another theme will be discussed during this meeting: the draft correcting and supplementary Council budget 2001, intended to create 51 new posts of military advisers. The draft budget (EUR 9.846 million), which was the subject of an agreement at the level of Coreper in February, responds to the conclusions of the European Council in Feira and Nice on the strengthening of common European security and defence policy (ESDP). The Parliament considers that this draft budget does not guarantee "transparency" as it is difficult to make a distinction between military and administrative spending. It also specifies that it will be necessary to define a mechanism allowing it to control the ceiling of the Council's administrative spending.
The draft budget is presented as follows: EUR 2.2342 million for the new posts to be created in services directly linked to the politico-military or related structures; EUR 4.474 million for paying indemnities and covering costs of posted national experts; EUR 3.03 million for infrastructure costs (telecommunications, data security and technical and information technology equipment).