Brussels, 12/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Budget Council (on 20 July) will proceed to the first reading of the draft budget 2002 on the basis of the agreement by qualified majority reached on Thursday by Coreper. The ambassadors of the Fifteen endorsed without amendments the compromise reached during the preparatory work of the Council (see EUROPE of 29 June and 4 July). Certain salient points are: - abolish the reserve of one billion euros proposed by the Commission to face up to possible agricultural crisis spending and reduce by EUR 200 million almost all the lines under that heading (market expenditure); - reduce by EUR 375 million payment credits for structural actions; - limit the credits of certain multiannual programmes of internal policies. The Commission mainly protested against the reductions in the following credits: MEDA and the Balkans (payments), the "Prince" programme and agencies (internal policy) and ISPA (pre-accession aid). EUROPE will come back to this.