Brussels, 03/12/2003 (Agence Europe) - Thanks to the fruitful results of the negotiation with the Council (EUROPE of 26 November 2003, p.9) the European Parliament should approve the 2004 Budget without difficulty, on 18 December in Strasburg. On Tuesday, its Budgets Committee adopted amendments to reject the last remaining problems in the areas of external actions and administrative spending.
Concerning aid to Iraq, the MEPs agreed to 'redeploy' credits in order to allow for the financing of the EUR 200 million needed for the reconstruction of the country. The MEPs rallied to the compromise proposal by the rapporteur Jan Mulder (ELDR, Dutch) consisting of undertaking reductions in section 4 of external actions to find the missing 35 million. Moreover, the Budgets Committee recommends that the EP put aside reserves of EUR 15 million for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. For these funds to be freed, the European Commission is invited to present a programme for the fight against drugs and the promotion of other viable crops.
Administrative spending is the other difficult issue after the Council's second reading. Eurostat sees 15% of its operational budget and 10% of its administrative budget placed into reserve (against 50% and 25% as proposed by the EP in first reading). Two conditions are set for the freeing of the funds: - the Commission's internal audit department should adopt harmonised criteria, which are enforced by decentralised audit units; - contracts with third parties will be suspended when the anti-fraud office (OLAF) proves the existence of fraud or irregularities. Finally, the MEPS support the Commission's demand to increase the number of appointments to tackle enlargement; in fact they feel that, despite the creation of 150 jobs, the 122 'enlargement' positions removed by the Council must be re-established and the reserve freed.