Brussels, 16/04/2008 (Agence Europe) - On 14 April, the European Commission adopted a preliminary draft amending budget (PDAB) for 2008. This covers several areas, such as the EU's solidarity fund intervention following the serious fires in Greece (see below) and spending on cattle vaccinations in several member states (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Spain and France) against bluetongue in sheep. This proposal was sent to the Council of Ministers of the EU and European Parliament for adoption.
According to the proposals, amendments to the current budget are necessary because the following needs have to be met: the budgeting of the revenue accruing from the Microsoft case (the Commission received a total amount of €849.2 million); the budgeting of part of the savings arising from the smaller than estimated increase for pay and pensions in 2007, leading to a reduction of €2.3 million in commitment and payment appropriations under heading 5 (administrative spending); the reinforcement of the emergency fund for veterinary measures due to the bluetongue crisis by €130 million in commitment appropriations and €63.95 million in payment appropriations; the creation of the necessary budgetary structure to accommodate four Joint Technology Initiatives: Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), Clean Sky, ARTGEMIS (Joint Technology Initiative in Embedded Computing Systems) and ENIAC (European Technology Platform on Nanoelectronics); the mobilisation of the EU Solidarity Fund for an amount of €98 million in commitment and payment appropriations relating to forest fires in Greece in August 2007 and floods in Slovenia in September 2007; modifications to the establishment plan of the European Institute for Gender Equality; modifications to the establishment plan of the European Economic and Social Committee.
The net effect of the modifications to expenditure is an increase of €225.7 million in commitment appropriations and an increase of €159.6 million in payments. There will be no call for additional revenue. (L.C.)