Brussels, 26/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - By adopting, on Tuesday afternoon the report by Joan Colom I Naval (Spanish, Socialist), the EP Budgets Committee approved, a few hours after the agreement that arose in the Budget Council, the table for allocating the unused structural action funds in 2000. Compared to the previous compromise examined by the Budgets Committee (see EUROPE of 9/10 April, p.5), this budgeting (which requires a modification of the financial forecasts in accordance with the provisions of the interinstitutional agreement of 1999) takes advantage of the following elements: - Greece feared that it would suffer from delays in the engagement of credits from its structural fund Objective 1 programmes; - the Commission emphasised that these delays should not excessively slow the implementation of the programming of these funds. The Budgets Committee progressively moved closer to the position of the Member States and the Commission.
The EUR 6.152 billion in unused structural fund grants will be allocated as follows (in engagement credits): - 2002: EUR 870 million; - 2003: EUR 1.178 billion; - 2004: EUR 1.642 billion; - 2005: EUR 1.396 billion; - 2006: EUR 1.067 billion. Finally, this new allocation table does not move too far away from the European Commission's initial proposal (linear allocation of amounts), unless the Objective 1 programmes foreseen for Greece are slightly delayed over 2003 and 2004, but in a far less pronounced manner than during the previous draft compromises. The Colom report will be voted in plenary on 3 May in Brussels.