23/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - During its second reading of the draft budget for 2002, the Council expressed its support, on Thursday, for a 1.1% increase in payment appropriations compared to 2001 (and not 1.8% as mistakenly reported in yesterday's edition of EUROPE, p.6). The Parliament, which undertook to reduce to 2% the increase in payment appropriations during the adoption of the budget, will therefore have the possibility to increase spending by 0.9%.