Brussels, 10/07/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament is expected to give an obvious sign of its agreement, during the September plenary session in Strasbourg, of the EUR 6.4 billion reduction in Member State contributions for the current budget. On Wednesday, the parliamentary Committee on Budgets approves the draft correcting budget No 3/2003 which provides for the surplus of the previous year to be entered in the budget of the current year (in all EUR 7.4 billion, including one billion euro already included in the budget for 2003). This SAB (supplementary and amending budget) was presented in May this year by Michaele Schreyer (see EUROPE of 12 May 2003, p.12). The budgets committee restates its criticism about the size of the 2002 surplus, while recognising progress made by the Commission (in the credit programming) compared to the surplus of EUR 15 billion in 2001.