Brussels, 03/05/2001 (Agence Europe) - During its weekly meeting, on Wednesday, the European Commission adopted a correcting preliminary draft budget No 3 for the budget 2001, which takes into account changes made to the number of staff in several institutions. Changes concern: - the European Anti-Fraud Office (re-balancing between permanent and temporary posts) (see EUROPE of 20 April, p.10); - the Commission (creation of 27 new posts to complete the posts attributed to research and development activities); - the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions (a temporary post is required for each of the two institutions to strengthen the team in charge of renovating the Belliard building). The changes proposed by OLAF should allow the Parliament to make the 76 posts requested by OLAF available. These posts had been placed in reserve by the EP during the vote on the budget for 2001.
All the changes proposed have "in common" that it is not necessary to modify either the receipts section or total spending, it is said at the Commission, which adds that the new posts proposed should be open at the end of the financial period, without a major impact on this year's budget.