Brussels, 23/12/2008 (Agence Europe) - The Community's contribution to the economic relaunch remains incomplete at this stage. During its meeting on Tuesday 23 December, the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Member States of the EU (Coreper) failed to rally the qualified majority needed to unblock the additional amounts of money earmarked by the European Commission to promote energy interconnections and broadband infrastructure projects.
Of the 14.4 billion euros of the Community budget earmarked to help the economy in the Commission's plan, it had been hoped that funds could be made available from the margin of the pillar containing CAP expenditure to a level of 3.5 billion euros in 2008 and 1.5 billion in 2009. The timetable is very tight, because in order to redistribute the first tranche of this additional money, a decision has to be made before the end of the year authorising the taking of the funds from column 2 for the current budget (2008). However, no final decision was possible at the meeting of Coreper (the last of this year), which means that any decision is now postponed until next year (according to diplomatic sources, the Commission's proposal nonetheless remains on the table).
Although it had given its green light in principle, the European Council did not pave the way to reallocate the unspent money. Unblocking this additional funding was conditional, amongst other things, on the presentation of concrete projects by Commission. Presenting a list of indicative projects to the ambassadors of the Twenty-Seven on Tuesday, the Commission failed to win over all of its audience, particularly as the current climate, which is enough to make everybody to count every penny, means that the Member States are more inclined to be paid back any unspent money, as is usually the case.
Many of the delegations wanted more clarifications on the observation of a certain geographical balance between the projects and are still questioning the added value of Community funding of this kind of initiative. The net contributor countries, such as Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden, repeated their concerns on the observation of budgetary discipline. The Czech Republic, which will take up the forthcoming Presidency of the Council of the EU, has pledged to continue the debate next year, particularly with a view to determining whether the mode of funding by the Community is the most appropriate.
In any event, by this blocking of the redeployment of unspent funds, the share of money from the Community budget to help the economy has been cut by a third. It is worth noting that apart from the envelope of 5 billion, this also comprises: 6.3 billion euros under the social and cohesion policy in the form of advance payments paid more quickly; -2.1 billion in redeployed credit from the budgetary lines for "green" cars, more energy-efficient buildings and the "factories of tomorrow", and high-speed Internet; -500 million advanced for trans-European transport projects; -500 million for various other projects. (A.B./trans.fl)