Brussels, 28/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - On 4 July, the European Parliament will examine, in plenary session, the report by Jutta Haug (Social Democrat, German) concerning, on the one hand, the planned supplementary and amending budget (SAB) N°3/2001, which modifies the Commission's and OLAF's staff, and on the other hand, the draft SAB N°4/2001 relating to the balance of the 2000 financial year and the additional payment credits for aid towards the reconstruction of the Western Balkans (see EUROPE of 4 May, p.14 and 31 May, p.12). Remaining in the framework of the 2001 budget, the MEPs will discuss another report by Mrs Haug on the state of the EU's own resources, which relaunched the idea of a European direct tax.
The Budgets Committee, by adopting these two reports, accepts the SAB N°3 (adopted in first reading, at the same time as the SAB N°4, by the Ecofin Council last 15 June) through the following amendments: (1) new staff table for OLAF for, in particular; - further favour temporary A and B positions rather than permanent positions (this is justified, according to the EP, by the need to allow OLAF to have a high and current level of competence and thus to use specialists to ensure its smooth functioning); - add EUR 3.8 million in reserves, while awaiting the adoption, by the OLAF monitoring committee, of a medium-term global strategy for the OLAF personnel; (2) create 30 positions for indirect technology research and development actions.
The MEPs also propose to modify the draft SAB N°4 by increasing from EUR 350 million to EUR 450 million to additional payment credits for assistance to the Western Balkans (+EUR 70 million in favour of the Balkans and 30 million to cover needs stemming from the new proposal for macro-financial assistance to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). Mrs Haug accepted the "receipts" part of this SAB (reimbursement to Member States of EUR 7.5 billion from the 2000 surplus), while once more denouncing the fact that the EP has no voice over the receipts part of the budget.
The other report by Mrs Haug on the situation of own resources in 2001 also revives the debate over the increase of receipts. It reiterates that the EU must depend less and less on the payments by Member States (while the system of own resources must be modified to achieve financial autonomy) and underlines that the finality of the reform should be to provide the Union with a independent source of revenue. The Budgets Committee recalls that the resources based on Gross National Product (GNP) regularly rose between 1998 and 2001, while at the same time, the traditional own resources and the VAT resource fell and thus intends, to reverse this trend, to support the efforts deployed in view of the possible institution of a direct Europe tax that will not lead to additional costs for the taxpayers. She also notes that the new decision on 29 December 2000 on the own resources would have as effect to further accentuate this trend, due not only to the raising from 10 to 25% of the share of traditional own resources retained to cover the costs of collection, but also the reduction of the maximum rate of the VAT resource (presently set a 1%), which will be lowered to 0.75% in 2002 and 2003 and to 0.50% from 2004.