Brussels, 31/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - EU Member States do not intend to make significant concessions to the European Parliament in negotiations on the final adoption of the 2007-2013 Financial Perspective. The Council would like to conclude this dossier during the 4 April Trilogue in Strasbourg, but not at any price. According to discussions held on 30 March in the Committee of Permanent Representatives of Member States to the EU (Coreper), the final agreement will contain either a slight increase in the total spending in the European Council's position in December 2005, or a rise in budget flexibility - but, according to the majority of Member States, not both.
The Austrian Presidency put a document to the Coreper setting out the main outcomes of the 21 March Trilogue (see EUROPE 9157) and proposing some areas for consideration to make it easier to reach an agreement with the EP on the new version of the inter-institutional agreement, which is required for the financial framework to be implemented. To give an idea of what could constitute a final agreement, it pointed out that negotiations with the EP at the adoption of the previous financial framework, for 2000-2006, reached agreement on an increase o f0.21% on total expenditure for the period. If the same percentage were applied today, this would come to an additional 1.8 billion euro for the 2007-2013 financial framework. Member States remained cautious on the increase to be conceded to Parliament, but let it be known that it should not exceed this sum of 1.8 billion. Parliament is seeking 12 billion euro more.
The Presidency has suggested two ways of increasing budget flexibility, both criticised, indeed rejected by those Member States, including Germany and the United Kingdom, which favour greater budgetary rigour. The first of these ideas is to remove Community funds for emergency aid from the financial framework, which would free up 1.5 billion euro in total for the period 2007-2013 to finance other EU external actions, especially the CFSP. The Council wants to increase funding for this policy to 300 million euro per year between 2007 and 2013, compared with 100 to 160 million euro per year under the breakdown proposed by the Commission after the conclusions of December's European Council. The second idea is a lighter procedure to mobilise the flexibility instrument for small sums.
In general terms, the Council wants to keep the maximum amount of the flexibility instrument at 200 million euro, while the Commission and Parliament want an increase. During the last Trilogue, on 21 March, Parliament and the Council, represented by the Austrian Presidency, reached virtual agreement on only three draft statements: the budget review 2008-2009, the review of the financial regulation and monitoring of Community finds (see EUROPE 8157). Parliament will hold a short plenary debate at the start of the session on 5 April, after the next Trilogue (see related article).
The Parliament is asking for an increase of 12 billion euro on the sum agreed by the European Council in December 2005 for the programmes most affected by budget cuts decided at the Summit: research, trans-European networks, health, consumers and education. The rapporteur on the financial perspective, German Christian Democrat Reimer Böge, warned, for example, that “we have 170,000 Erasmus students annually at the moment, but there will be no more than 140,000” after the decisions of the December 2005 European Council. The Commission supports increasing funding for some programmes, with giving figures.