Brussels, 27/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - At a discussion on Monday with the European Parliament's Budget Committee, the Director General for the Budget at the European Commission, Jean-Paul Mingasson, suggested thinking about setting up a "crisis instrument" (that would operate like the current flexibility instrument) for dealing with the increasing and often unpredictable external policy needs of the EU and thereby relieving some of the pressure in this area in the Financial Perspectives. Mr Mingasson explained that Commissioner Michaele Schreyer did not want any review of the Financial Perspectives as such; rather an amendment of the inter-institutional agreement to formally introduce the use of the flexibility instrument, the great advantage of which was that it could exceed the ceilings set for it in silence.
Referring to the remarks made by Michaele Schreyer at the consultation meeting last Wednesday before the second reading of the 2002 Budget by the Council, Mr Mingasson said that should the amounts earmarked in the budget for events in Afghanistan not prove to be sufficient vis-à-vis the amounts the international community wants to mobilise and which the EU has committed itself to, then it would be necessary to accept that the measures of the inter-institutional agreement did not go far enough. In the run-up to the final vote on the Budget in plenary, the Budget Committee found that the compromise position reached by the Council last Thursday was generally balanced and acceptable (particularly thanks to the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument for the third year in a row), but that a position still had to be taken on the additional posts requested by the Commission (the credits for which have been held in reserve by the EP which is waiting to assess how the internal reform process is progressing) and various development policy programmes for which the MEPs are still waiting for explanations from the relevant Commissioners (Poul Nielson and Chris Patten). Another challenge for the EP: confirming the EU's commitment to Afghanistan without making cuts in its standard priority areas (the Balkans and MEDA). Mr Mingasson felt that for the moment, the rapporteur Carlos Costa Neves (EPP-ED, Portugal) was cutting his cloth a bit tight for the MEDA programme since behind the programme lies Palestine. Mr Costa Neves retorted that he had repeated the Council's figures. Mr Costa Neves' draft report on the 2002 Budget is likely to be adopted on Monday and Tuesday of next week by the Budget Committee and be voted on by the plenary session of 13 December.