Brussels, 26/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - By adopting, on Wednesday, the report by Markus Ferber, Bavarian CDU member, the EP's Budgets Committee calls on the EP to approve the draft Council's Supplementary and Amending Budget (SAB) N° 2/2001 on the enhancing of the European common policy in terms of security and defence (ESDP) (see EUROPE of 29 March, p.6 and 5 April, p.8). As a reminder, this SAB, for a total of EUR 9,848 million, is aimed at financing the creation of 511 new posts of military advisor and to take on the infrastructure costs (telecommunication and data protection).
Let us add that the MEP from the Budgets Committee did not follow the opinion of the Foreign Affairs Committee, which favoured the authorisation of a number of lesser posts. The MEPs call for the administrative spending stemming from the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and from the ESDP to be included in the Union budget, in order for the EP to be able to fully exercise democratic control over these policies. Markus Ferber underlines that the Council has undertaken (during the three way talks on 29 March) to create, in its budget for 2002, a special heading dedicated to administrative spending linked to CFSP/ESDP. The Budgets Committee feels that the existing margin to finance the administrative spending (section 5) is very tight. It calls on the Council not to establish structures whose task would overlap with those of the Commission services, notably in terms of crisis prevention and management.