Brussels, 13/07/2006 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 14 July EU Member States are expected to adopt in first reading, a fairly tight draft budget for 2007, €1.7 bn lower in payment appropriations than that envisaged in the original European Commission proposal (EUROPE 9184). The Ecofin Council meeting (“budget” group), chaired by the minister delegate of the Finish finance minister, Ulla-Maj Wideroos, will be preceded by concertation with a delegation from the European Parliament's budget committee and Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaité. This meeting between the three institutions is expected to be dominated by divergences over safeguards the Council wants to impose in recruitment of new officials to the European institutions.
Following the fruitless budgetary dialogue meeting on 10 July, the Parliament recognised that it would practically obtain nothing at this stage of the procedure on the draft 2007 budget. It is mainly aiming to protest with the Commission against the draft Council declarations on getting rid of 500 permanent official posts by 2010 and 200 posts through unplanned early retirement (EUROPE 9227). The EP is hoping to get the Commission and Council to sign a declaration requesting the opening of a concertation procedure at the beginning of November on updating financial regulation provisions. According to the draft declaration, the Council has been called on, before then, to reach a common position on the case by October. Spending mentioned so far in the procedure at this meeting involves agriculture, fisheries agreements with third countries and Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).
Total funding volume: in keeping with the work of Coreper, the Council is expected to decide during the first reading to bring commitment appropriations in 2007 to €125. 75 bn (€-1.02 bn compared to the Commission's initial proposal). Payment appropriations are expected to rise to 114.61 bn, 0.98% of Gross National Income (GNI) of the EU-27 (with Romania and Bulgaria), a fall of 1.75 bn compared to the preliminary draft budget. The EP has said that payment appropriations for the 2006 budget represent 1.01% of the EU-25's GNI.
Competitiveness (section 1 a): the Council agreed to include commitment appropriations (€15 million) for the International Fund for Ireland (aid for the peace process) and €10 million for the two pilot projects “knowledge triangle” and “energy security”.
Cohesion (section 1 b): the Council is expected to go back to the level of commitment appropriations proposed by the Commission (€45.48 bn) but to reduce structural fund payments from the old programmes (2000-2006) by 425 million.
Natural resources (section 2): the Council draft lays down a clear reduction of €365 million (payments and appropriations) of funding through the different agricultural market interventions (cereals, sugar, wine distillation), plus a 150 million reduction in milk subsidies and 205 million from accounts clearance.
Citizenship, freedom and justice (section 3): the Council has introduced slight reductions in certain programmes to bringing the margin under the 219.6 million ceiling.
Administration (section 5): Coreper has agreed to the totality of the new posts requested by the Commission for 2007: 582 due to accession of the 10 new Member States in 2004, 208 for enlargement - Romania and Bulgaria - and 11 for translations into the Irish language. The Council has, however, put funding in reserve for 142 posts while waiting for the Commission to prove that the recruitment procedure is working effectively. A draft declaration has, however, planned to leave 200 posts vacant in 2007 (in all institutions) made available by retirements, and calls on the Commission to get rid of 500 posts by 2010.