Strasbourg, 09/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - With the adoption of the report by Carlos Costa Neves (EPP-ED, Portugal) with a view to conciliation with Council on the preliminary draft budget 2002, the European Parliament calls for agricultural expenditure to remain under the ceiling authorised in the financial perspectives (in accordance with budgetary discipline: see details of the report in EUROPE of 29 June, p;17 and 18). MEPs suggest that, in future, credits that are not needed in the "compulsory expenditure" part of the Common Agricultural Policy (market spending) should be transferred to the "non-compulsory" part to strengthen rural development policy (heading 1b-agriculture). Conciliation will be held on 20 July and will be preceded, on 9 July, by a budgetary trilogue.
The Parliament considers that the Commission proposal on the creation of a reserve of one billion euros for covering possible expenditure to fight against BSE and foot-and-mouth disease "partly responds" to its concerns. It does, however, wonder why the services under Michaele Schreyer made such a proposal at this stage in the procedure. According to MEPs, there is the possibility that an amending letter will be proposed in the autumn, which would make it possible to have a better idea of the real needs. The Commission is invited to provide, before the 1st reading of the EP in October, details on the measures that it plans to finance thanks to this reserve.
Concerning credits allocated to common foreign and security policy (CFSP), the Parliament requests that a programme for the reduction and destruction of weapons of mass destruction be developed in the world. Regarding administrative spending (heading 5), the EP invites the Council and the Commission to study, with it, not only the long term needs of defence policy, of enlargement, and of the other sectors of the budget that are expanding, but also their effect on the credits under heading 5. The Parliament also recalls its priorities expressed in the budgetary guidelines for 2002 approved in April ("e-learning" initiative, external actions, asylum and migration policy).