Brussels, 12/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - At its meeting last Wednesday, the Budget Committee reached qualified majority agreement on the broad outlines of the draft Budget for 2002. This technical compromise proposes increasing spending on commitment appropriations by 1.42% and on payment appropriations by 1.15% over the 2001 budget (as against +2.1% and +1.97% respectively on first reading by the Council in July 2001). This is a provisional agreement that has no bearing on what the Permanent Representatives' Committee (COREPER) and Budget Council decide on 21 November. The Council and Parliament will meet up in the evening of 19 November to discuss the draft Budget 2002 ahead of the second reading by the Council.
Most Member States experts refused to accept the Commission's proposal to mobilise some EUR 197 million from the flexibility instrument for restructuring the Spanish and Portuguese fishing fleets, preferring to commit this sum from credits made available under Heading 3 of the Financial Perspectives (internal policies) with the aim of setting up a two-year programme (EUR 92 million in commitment appropriations and EUR 32 million in payment appropriations in 2002; EUR 105 million in 2003). When the idea was discussed by the Budget Committee, five countries (led by Austria and Germany) insisted (unsuccessfully at this stage) that additional expenditure come under Heading 2 (Structural Actions) rather than aid for border regions.
At the three-way technical budget meeting on Thursday, the acting President of the Budget Committee informed the Secretariat of the EP's Budget Committee about the outcome of its work. Parliament noted with concern that the Council did not appear to favour working along with the EP since most of its amendments in first reading had not been accepted by the Budget Committee (with the exception of a few amendments regarding agriculture). The EP favours the Commission's idea of using the flexibility instrument and categorically refuses to accept that fishermen compensation funds be used at the expense of programmes under Heading 3. EUROPE understands that all the Parliament's "horizontal" amendments have been rejected (on the remainder to be liquidated and separating administrative expenditure for the agencies from the pilot projects put forward by the EP), as were most of the EP's amendments in the following areas: internal policies (except the amendments on funds for refugees and e-learning); external actions (apart from the credits for Asia which have been increased, and the amendments on humanitarian aid for Afghanistan); and administrative expenditure.