Brussels, 09/11/2007 (Agence Europe) - On 7 November, the European Commission adopted its 7th preliminary draft amending budget (PDAB), reducing payment appropriations for the current year, the 2007 budget, by €1.25bn. The PDAB also budgets the substantial increase in the forecast of revenue (VAT and gross national income balances) by €3.23m).
The Commission is proposing to adjust the payment appropriations for several budget lines to align them more closely with the latest estimates of needs. The €1.25 bn cut in payment appropriations that is being requested takes the following into consideration: 1) the fine-tuning of cohesion expenditure; 2) the winding-up of payments stemming from the previous financial framework; 3) the late adoption of some legal bases, and the resulting delays in starting up new programmes; and 4) the need to take account of the state of implementation of certain pilot projects and preparatory actions.
Heading 1a: Competitiveness for Growth and Employment. The proposed reduction of payment appropriations for Heading 1a is €466.5m, including €239m from research framework programmes. The proposal withdraws the €100m initially foreseen for Galileo start-up, which has fallen behind.
Heading 1b: Cohesion for Growth and Employment. The Commission is suggesting a €573m reduction in payment appropriations for the Structural Funds and Cohesion Funds. Due to delays in adopting some programmes, the Commission believes that it might not be possible in 2007 to pay €1bn out of the total budget of €7bn for advances to the new cohesion policy 2007-2013. In contrast, payments for the pre-2007 Structural Funds have so far exceeded expectations. There are concerns over pre-2007 Cohesion Funds payments. Although Portugal's and Poland's figures exceeded expectations for payment requests, payments remained below expectation in the other member states, the level of payment requests from Bulgaria, Spain, the Czech Republic and Slovenia 'being especially low'. Consequently, overall payments are forecast to be some €500m lower than forecast.
Heading 2: Preservation and Management of Natural Resources. Almost half of the 26 new 2007-2013 programmes of the European Fisheries Funds (EFF) have yet to be received by the Commission. The respective advances will not be paid in 2007. Consequently, the Commission proposes a reduction of €19.4m in the EFF payment appropriations. Payment appropriations for the new LIFE+ environmental programme will also have to be revised down. LIFE+ projects will be selected in 2008 and therefore no payment appropriations will be needed in 2007 for this part of the programme.
Heading 3a: Freedom, Security and Justice. Funds for these actions have been reduced by €104m, including a €60m cut in funding for the External Borders Funds (due to the late adoption of the legal basis). (L.C.)