Brussels, 05/11/2007 (Agence Europe) - On 26 October 2007, the European Commission adopted its second amending letter to the preliminary draft budget 2008 on new estimates of farm spending. According to the latest estimates, appropriations for farm spending (including veterinary expenditure and fisheries expenditure financed by the European Agriculture Guidance and Guarantee Fund - EAGGF) will total €41.16 billion in commitment appropriations, a €1.33bn cut on the initial draft figures incorporated in the preliminary draft budget 2008. An identical cut in payment appropriations is also proposed, leading to a total budget of €41.11bn (market expenditure and direct farm aid).
Some €362 million of the savings has been transferred to the Rural Development heading to take account of implementation of voluntary 'modulation' of direct farm aid by the United Kingdom.
The revising down of farm spending is due to: 1) a €659m cut in the estimated market intervention requirements (due to a better than expected situation on the markets); 2) a €362m transfer of direct aid to rural development due to the application of voluntary modulation by the United Kingdom; 3) an upward revision of the assigned revenue resulting from the milk superlevy (€64m) and 4) supplementary revenue carried over from 2007 (€248m). In parallel, the proposed 2008 appropriations for rural development have been increased by €362m in commitment appropriations to €12.93bn, through the voluntary modulation of direct aid by the United Kingdom.
For the overall budget of the common agricultural policy, the amending letter submitted by the European Commission to the budget authority (the Council and European Parliament) makes net savings of €970m in commitment appropriations and €1.33bn in payment appropriations.
International Fisheries Agreements. The draft 2008 budget for international fisheries agreements remains virtually unchanged in the amending letter, with €155.1m of commitment appropriations and €157.1m of payment appropriations for the fisheries agreements in force as at 1 January 2008 (up €1.7m on the €155.4m in commitment appropriations and the €156.4m payment appropriations foreseen in the preliminary draft budget 2008). The change covers the payment of compensation for fishing catches revised upwards for the agreement with Greenland (up €1.5 million) and downwards for the agreement with Guinea Conakry (-€0.8 million). (L.C.)