Strasbourg, 05/04/2004 (Agence Europe) - After adopting in Strasbourg last week the own-initiative report of Michel-Ange Scharbonchi (France, GUE/NGL) on including European Development Funds (EDF) in the Community budget, the European Parliament is inviting the Council of Ministers to unanimously vote on this decision. The Parliament notes that any decision will have to be consistent with the Monterrey commitments aiming to earmark a substantial amount of public funding for development. It underlined that one of the sine qua non conditions for the inclusion of the EDF in the Community budget would be guaranteed allocation of funds for EDF purposes, to avoid money being siphoned off to finance other needs. The Parliament is inviting the Commission and the Council to preserve the use of EDF funds by creating a EDF sub-heading in the financial perspectives. The ceiling for financial perspectives (1.24% of GDI) should also be raised in order to add the 0.03% of GDI corresponding to the EDF annual share.