Brussels, 25/03/2009 (Agence Europe) - Current financial perspectives, for the period 2007-2013, could be extended until the end of 2015-2016, according to the European Parliament which, in Strasbourg on Wednesday 25 March, adopted the report by Reimer Böge (EPP-ED, Germany) by the huge majority of 604 votes to 48, with 40 abstentions. The report recommends a three-phase approach to bring the next financial framework into line with the five-year terms of office of the European Commission and the European Parliament, and to take account of the possible coming into effect of the Lisbon Treaty.
The mid-term review of current legislative programmes will take place in 2010-2011. The Commission intends to publish a communication, by autumn 2009, on the main thrust of the next financial framework. To prepare this communication, the Commission opened a public consultation exercise in September 2007. The EP confirmed its position that “the political link between the reform of revenue and a review of expenditure is inevitable and perfectly reasonable”. It noted that Headings 1a (competitiveness for growth and jobs) and 4 (external action) are already “under-financed” in the current financial framework. In adopting an amendment put down by the PES, the EP pointed out that, while some member states may insist on a “1% approach” (Germany, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Sweden and Austria want to cap the EU budget at 1% of GDP), “there will be no budgetary way to finance new priorities”.
During the debate the previous day, Böge, who chairs the EP budgets committee, pointed out that the mid-term review of the EU budget (revenue and expenditure) was due in 2010. A check of the documents sent as part of the public consultation exercise reveals that most member states which responded “are trying to avoid their responsibilities” in jumping straight to the next financial framework (post-2013), he said. He went on to say that he had just left a meeting on the €5 billion recovery plan (energy projects, internet and new challenges for rural areas), where margins that were no longer available were being sought and where credits were being reprogrammed in an effort to find the €5 billion. “We cannot go on like that,” he cried. He called on the Commission to bring forward, by the autumn, proposals not simply for post-2013, but also on the review of the current financial perspective. He urged that the current financial framework be extended until 2015-2016 to allow for a smooth transition towards a system of five-year multiannual financial frameworks (MFF), which gives each Parliament and each Commission, during their respective terms of office, political responsibility
for each MFF.
European Budget Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite congratulated the EP and the Commission, because, over five years, “we have revised the financial framework three times” (for Galileo, the Food facility and, now, the €5 billion recovery plan), something “which had never happened before”. The Commission was ready to negotiate on the basis of Böge's report, and it confirmed its obligation to present proposals for a mid-term review of the EU budget by the end of the year. (L.C./transl.rt)