Brussels, 21/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - The meeting, Monday evening, between the Parliament, Council and Commission enabled to prepare the talks on the draft 2002 budget that began on Wednesday afternoon before the Budget Council. This three way meeting, as with the meetings, on Tuesday, between the European Parliament's budgets committee and the budgetary committee, enabled the two branches of the budgetary authority to fine tune their strategy. To facilitate the dialogue between the EP and Council and to help the search for a global compromise on the 2002 budget, the Commission proposed to make a gesture in favour of the border regions and suggested creating a special fund for crisis management linked to the conflict in Afghanistan. Below are the main problems on the table:
Agriculture: The European Parliament delegation presents the Council with a "shopping list" of its priorities concerning agriculture including: the creation of a EUR 200 million fund to finance the reimbursement of the "foot and mouth" bill; EUR 58 million fall in spending dedicated to export restitution's for live animals: EUR 180 million for support measures to the beef market (special purchasing scheme for destruction and storage), +EUR 2.5 million for bee keeping and EUR 8.5 million for milk distribution in schools. The Council only seemed prepared to accept a small part of the demands, notably for bee keeping, in order to permit for maintaining a significant margin below the ceiling of the financial perspectives.
Structural actions: Logically, the significant increase in payment credits favoured by the EP should not be supported by the Council. The debate especially covers the problem of the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument to finance the restructuring programme for the Spanish and Portuguese fleet to the value of EUR 197 million (as proposed by the Commission). The Council feels that it is possible to make use of the credits available in Section 3 of the Internal Policies (see EUROPE of 19 and 20 November, p.10). The Parliament proposed to use the flexibility instrument to finance not only the specific action for fishing (in this case EUR 150 million), but also a specific action in favour of the Member States regions (Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece and Finland) bordering the candidate countries. Until now the Commission has refused these two approaches, and offered in order to answer these countries demands by proposing to allocate EUR 55 million in total during 2002 and 2003 to Section 3 (internal policies).
Internal policies: The Council should answer the EP's concerns only with regards to the "e-learning" programmes and in terms of immigration.
External policies: The Commission should propose for the budgetary authority to create a fund (of EUR 120 million) to cover the needs stemming from the crisis in Afghanistan, which would allow for a better financial visibility, especially a few days before the donors conference. This options would thus allow to mobilise the necessary funds through a simple transfer.
Administrative spending: A discussion should take place over this section that risks being submitted to a great pressure even before enlargement. In a report by the Secretaries General on the multi-annual development of Section 5, it emerges that the costs of pre-enlargement in 2003 are estimated at EUR 134 million, which would result in exceeding the margin in this Section by EUR 129 million. The cost of enlargement could be in the region of EUR 474 million in 2004. The Commission will notably recommend spreading the reimbursements linked to the real estate policy of the various institutions.