Brussels, 26/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - As we mentioned, on Monday the EP's Committee on the Budgets approved a report by Carlos Costa Neve (Portuguese, EPP-ED) and Kathalijne Buitenweg (Dutch, Green/EFA) on the European Commission's draft supplementary and amending budget (SAB) defining the financial framework of the European Convention on the future of Europe (see EUROPE of 21 February, p.10). The members of the Committee on the Budgets recommend that the EP, that is to vote on the report in plenary in Brussels on Thursday, approve the different elements of the agreement which the institutions reached at the informal trilogy last week: - the creation of a special 4 million euro fund funded by the institutions to cover the Convention's cash expenses; - the key-distribution between the three institutions (Council 0.4 million euro; Commission 2.6 million euro; EP 1 million euro); - the specific financial rules proposed in the new inter-institutional agreement (which has as aim to organise the contribution of the three institutions).
So as to respond to the concerns expressed by the EP's Committees on Budgetary Control and Constitutional Affairs, an amendment by Costa Neves stresses the "exceptional and circumstantial nature of this agreement" and places emphasis on the fact that the practice it introduces (especially regarding the discharge) may in no way serve as a precedent to finance any new body that may be created in future, "should the latter be funded from the Community budget". In addition, this amendment aims to reaffirm the role of the Court of Auditors (which is to assist the EP in its discharge role), forgotten in the new inter-institutional agreement.
Jean-Louis Bourlanges (French, EPP-ED), urged by the Committee on the Budgets to express the concerns of MEPs, said: "beyond the problem that financing raises, through the intergovernmental decision and the inter-institutional agreement that validates it, there is a very serious substantive problem we must be attentive to: it is totally wrong to say, as does the Council, that because the Convention is a sui generis reality, there needed to be a derogatory procedure in relation to that of the Treaty". "The Convention may be sui generis", he continued, "but its mode of financing is totally classical" (contribution by the three institutions to an outside body). "There was no reason for this expenditure in the Community budget to be the subject of a derogatory procedure", thus Bourlanges considered, adding that if the Council had proposed that formula, "it was that it wanted to experiment with something new that is Community budgetary expenditure, but managed through an intergovernmental procedure". In no way must this agreement serve as precedent regarding procedure, Mr. Bourlanges repeated.
Reimer Boge (CDU), who conducted negotiations with the Council, retraced the history of the problem of funding the Convention, recalling that "we set out from a difficult situation" (the Council proposed consultation with MEPs to transfer 1 million euro of the EP budget to the Council budget, without Parliament having anything to say as to how to organise the discharge) finally to arrive at acceptance, on the part of Parliament, of a "tight schedule, on condition that its rights were taken account of, and thus by adapting the initial proposals". Parliament was able to insist of the fact "that it was a question of an exceptional situation", he went on. Ms. Buitenweg, for whom the outcome of negotiations is "appreciable", said that the EP would have liked a different starting position (classical procedure), but that the "Council told us that the Convention responded to a different institutional rationale", that of the Intergovernmental Conference (responsibility of Member States).
The Committee on the Budgets also adopted a report by Ms. Buitenweg on the foreseeable supplementary state of EP revenue and expenditure in 2002, so as to create a budgetary structure for its 1 million euro contribution to the special financing fund.