Brussels, 17/05/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the European Parliament gave the go-ahead to the Council's amending and supplementary budget (ASB) No.2/2001 aimed at financing, to the tune of 9.846 million euro, the creation of 51 new positions of military advisors allocated to security and defence policy (ESDP) (see EUROPE of 27 April, p. 16). The Markus Ferber Report on the ASB, adopted through 336 in favour, 12 against and 2 abstentions, does, however, reaffirm the EP's concerns, on the one hand, for the question of transparency in controlling spending linked to this policy, and, on the other, the slight margin remaining under Heading 5 of the financial perspectives ("increased spending for ESDP could prove an obstacle to classical administrative expenditure", says the report). The EP welcomes the Council's decision of creating, in the 2002 budget, a special title together with different chapters relating to administrative spending linked to ESDP.
Plenary rejected a proposed rejection of this budget presented by the Greens, which considered that the procedure being followed did not provide sufficient guarantees concerning the democratic control by the European Parliament over this important policy: German Green Heide Ruhle, in the Committee on the Budgets, had in particular stated that it was not simply a question of administrative expenditure, and that there should have been a genuine budgetary dialogue with the Council instead of a simple "trilogy". The rapporteur replied that, at the trilogy of 29 March, the Council had pledged to provide, in its budget for 2002, for a special title devoted to administrative expenditure for CFSP/ESDP.