Brussels, 17/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - The representatives of Member states, meeting within the Budgetary Committee, have already had initial talks on the preliminary draft budget for the financial year 2003. It emerges from these preliminary talks before the Budget Council - which will have a first reading of the preliminary draft budget on 19 July - that the problem of administrative expenses (in view of enlargement) remains whole and that there is great reluctance to mobilise, as the Commission proposes, the flexibility instrument. At this stage, the experts of the Budgetary Committee seem to agree on at least one point: a contained increase in payment appropriations (around 2%, against 2.7% according to the Commission).
The question of Heading 5 of the financial perspective should be examined on Wednesday (in Coreper). For now, the Budgetary Committee seems prepared to make efforts at reducing the amount of spending for the functioning of the Council, but is divided on the degree of that effort. The Presidency has proposed an increase in Council spending of 7% in relation to 2002 (against 11% according to the first estimates), which is still too much for some and not enough for others. As for agricultural spending, four delegations recommend a lump-sum reduction, but others (like France, Ireland, Italy and Greece) are opposed to that, and yet others would like to wait for the amending letter from the Commission in the autumn. The problem of the flexibility instrument also occurs for Heading 2 (structural measures), as the Commission proposes using it to the tune of 27 million euro to honour the 2001 commitments, as well as financing measures for restructuring the Spanish and Portuguese fleets in 2003. Under Heading 3, the Budgetary Committee seems to be once again moving towards an increase in available margins be reducing appropriations for certain programmes ("Marco Polo" or "Fiscalis", for example), whereas a consensus is emerging not to reduce measures of the "Lisbon Strategy". The external actions (Heading 4), it is a little bit the same scenario, with a will to increase the (small) amount of margin available under the ceiling for the financial perspectives. One delegation asked for a budgetary impact assessment study of the proposals for reforming the common fisheries policy, which seems a bit premature to others.
The EP's Committee on the Budget is to adopt the Faerm Report on Wednesday which regards it as "premature" to use the flexibility instrument to remedy the 66 million euro overspending of the ceiling for administrative spending and calls on the Council to stick rigorously to its budget.