Brussels, 30/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - The meeting of the budgetary trilogue on Thursday allowed the three institutions taking part to reach an agreement on how the European Commission plans to transfer, during the period 2002/2006, part of the allocations not used (EUR 6.152 billion) from Structural Funds (see EUROPE of 29 March, p.6). The European Parliament has been ruled justified concerning one of the main requests put forward in the report by MEP Joan Colom I Naval (PES, Spain). The request will be debated in plenary on Tuesday for a more targeted breakdown of commitment appropriations for the years 2004 and 2005. The Commission, which recommended breakdown into equal annual tranches (to take into account the fact that some areas under Objective 2 of the Structural Funds would no longer be eligible in 2006), accepted carry-over of the staggered funding as follows: 2002: EUR 252 million; 2003: EUR 381 million; 2004: EUR 2.227 billion; 2005: EUR 2.226 billion; 2006: EUR 1.067 billion. The Council, which had already agreed to the proposals of the Commission at Coreper level, pointed out that it reserved its response until Monday evening. The Commission, on the other hand, will not agree to modify the total ceiling for payments as requested by rapporteur Joan Colom I Naval. It specified that the situation would be reviewed during the coming financial periods, in the light of the development of funding and the eventual carry-over of annual amounts still to be liquidated after 2006. We recall that, under the interinstitutional agreement of 8 May 1999 on budgetary discipline, the Parliament must take a decision on adapting financial perspectives before 1 May.
The Parliament did not obtain the tabled guarantees from the Council on the democratic control of the correcting and supplementary draft budget (CSB) for 2001 (CSB of EUR 9.846 million for the creation of new posts of military advisers in the context of the strengthening of European common policy for security and defence. The Council only undertook to respect transparency during the elaboration of the 2002 budget and to include these amounts in a separate chapter (Title III of ESDP) to make a clear distinction with the heading for administrative spending. The problem still remains, as the EP noted that it would not hesitate to use the weapon of amendments if it did not obtain the necessary safeguards for exercising its power of control.
The discussion on 2002 budgetary guidelines ended in a refusal from the Commission to accept two requests by the European Parliament (taken up in the report by Carlos Costa Neves, see EUROPE of 28 March, p.14): 1) update, for 15 September 2001, the mid-term assessment report on Common Agricultural Policy: the Commission retorted that this assessment was not foreseen before 2002, in order to be able to measure the effects of reform in the arable crop and dairy sector; 2) establish a legal base (to possibly create a Community support scheme) in favour of the e-Learning initiative on the use of new communication technologies in the field of education (see EUROPE of 29 March, p.7). The sector remains "covered by the principle of subsidiarity", said the Commission. Furthermore, the Council was reproached for dragging its feet in the adoption of the proposal on the early retirement plan that would have allowed 600 officials to leave between 2002 and 2003.