Strasbourg, 15/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - During the plenary on Tuesday, in Strasbourg, Commissioner Michaele Schreyer presented the broad lines of the preliminary draft budget for 2003, above all insisting on respect by the Commission of budgetary discipline (payment appropriations amount to 1.03% of the Community GNP, that is, less than the amount foreseen in the 2002 budget, 1.05%), and the presence of a major margin of EUR 4.7 billion under the ceiling of the financial perspectives, which should make it possible to face unforeseen needs. She said she expected that the budgetary debates this year would focus on the new needs in human resources arising from enlargement and on the new challenges facing the European Union in the Middle East.
Ms Schreyer explained that only costs linked to the preparation of enlargement have meant the Commission has had to exceed the ceiling of financial perspectives under the administrative spending heading, and therefore to propose the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument. Göran Färm (PES, Sweden), rapporteur on the 2003 budget, hinted that the EP would be more willing to use this mechanism for other purposes than for preparing enlargement, for example, for the financing of additional external actions. He felt, on one hand, that the margin under Heading 4 (external policies) was "insufficient" because of the uncertainty over the amount of aid in favour of the Palestinians and Afghan people, and, on the other, that the Secretaries General of the institutions should make "radical" proposals to reduce administrative spending for preparing enlargement. Mr Färm also expressed his reticence about the creation of many agencies in the transport, justice and food safety fields as this could "double" costs. Per Stenmarck (EPP-Ed, Sweden) also felt recourse to the flexibility instrument for administrative spending was of no purpose. This view was echoed by British Labour member Neena Gill, who expressed considerable reserve on this point. Esko Olavi Seppänen (GUE/NGL, Finland) felt that the flexibility instrument was a "bad mechanism" for financing the 500 new posts requested by the Commission in the context of enlargement. He was more in favour of sharing out existing human resources "to make savings".