Brussels, 19/07/2002 (Agence Europe) - The Economy and Finance Ministers of EU Member States, who met on Friday in Brussels, established at first reading a draft budget for 2003. The draft budget recommends controlled growth in the volume of allocations and respect of the ceilings of financial perspectives, in conformity to what was agreed by Coreper: EUR 99.5 billion in commitments and EUR 96.9 billion in payments. Furthermore, the Council and the Parliament reached a concerted final agreement on the administrative spending of the institutions (the first time this has happened at such an advanced stage of procedure) and a compromise on common foreign and security policy (CFSP).
As far as Heading 5 is concerned (administrative spending), the Council and Parliament agreed not to agree to the 500 new posts requested by the Commission (temporary six-month postings for auxiliaries and posted national experts) with a view to preparing enlargement. The flexibility instrument proposed to finance these posts will therefore not be used. The Parliament secured Council agreement on application (hitherto refused) of the early retirement scheme to 100 of its officials and 24 temporary agents of the EP political groups. The Council and Parliament foresee a special reserve of EUR 29 million for the translation of acquis communautaire into 9 languages (18 million in the Council budget and EUR 11 million in the Commission budget) but the Council promises that the full amount will be made available to the Commission for this work. The Council has decided on total administrative expenditure, at this stage, for all the institutions (including the European Parliament) of EUR 5,535 million, a 3.03 rise on 2002. A total of 311 permanent new posts, broken down into 236 for the Council, 53 for the Court of Justice, 14 for the Court of Auditors, 7 for the Economic and Social Committee and 1 for the Ombudsman have been granted under pre-enlargement spending.
There was no agreement about the budget for the EFDP in 2003, but the EP was prepared to accept the new needs as long as they are properly justified by the Council. The European Parliament won an extension to the field of application of the emergency aid reserve for civilian crises, although the reserve was only foreseen for humanitarian aid programmes.
In the framework of the inter-institutional discussions about the 2002 budget, a compromise was sketched out by the three institutions over a payment of EUR 25 million for Afghanistan, of EUR 10 million for Palestine and EUR 30 million for southern Africa.
At a press conference Commissioner Michaele Schreyer expressed her disappointment about the posts requested to prepare the institutions for enlargement. She spoke of a pretty unbalanced agreement and a peace treaty between the Council and the EP which, she hoped, would not sacrifice the Commission. She said that the Council had only accepted an increase of less than 3% in the Commission's expenditure (as against 2002) as against 7% for its own expenditure (and even more than 11% if one takes into account the cost of publishing Community acquis. Commissioner Neil Kinnock's spokesperson said that one of the arguments put forward by the Council to justify its rigour, namely that there are too many unfilled posts at the Commission, didn't hold water. He admitted there were currently 700 unfilled posts, but said there was a natural incompressible figure of 500 unfilled posts (because of the very size of the institution). The figure is falling at a slower rate than expected because the funding needed to fill new posts was only granted very late last year (which had an impact on recruitment, he explained). He added that the increase in the Council's administrative expenditure did not leave much over for the other institutions.
The Council confirmed the COREPER agreement on the other headings of the budget. For agriculture, the Council has foreseen a linear reduction of EUR 275 million in total across all the budget sections for market expenditure where spending exceeds EUR 1.5 billion and to not include credits for two activities for which there is no legal basis (EUR 3 million for other activities in the veterinary, animal welfare and public health field and EUR 10 million for genetic resources). The loans proposed for rural development have been accepted. In keeping with the conclusions of the European Council of Berlin, the Council accepted commitment appropriations such as those proposed in the Preliminary Draft budget of the Commission and has decided to reduce commitment payments due to their under-execution in recent years, by EUR 525 million. Ministers have not so far wanted to include the EUR 27 million amount in commitment appropriations in the restructuring programme for the Spanish and Portuguese fleets. The three institutions adopted a declaration that intends to find a solution to these issues (which have been confirmed) by the end of the budgetary procedure of 2003.