Parliament seeks shortfall guarantee
An eleventh-hour deal struck on the EU’s finances for 2013.
The European Union’s budget for 2013 is set to be signed into law within a week, after its adoption by member states’ interior ministers in Brussels today. The European Parliament’s plenary in Strasbourg is scheduled to vote on the €133 billion budget on Wednesday (12 December), following a vote in the budgets committee on Monday (10 December). The budget emerged from emergency negotiations between member states, the European Commission and MEPs on Thursday (29 November) and foresees €150.9bn in commitments and €132.8bn in payments (instead of €151.1bn and €137.8bn proposed by the Commission).
However, the Parliament is still seeking stronger guarantees that the member states will plug spending holes in the 2012 and 2013 budgets. Martin Schulz, the president of the Parliament, warned yesterday (5 December) that the plenary will approve the budget only if “the highest levels of the institutions” deliver guarantees that €3bn in payments rolled over from 2012 will be covered by the EU’s member states, in addition to the agreed budget of €133bn.
He has asked President Demetris Christofias of Cyprus, the current holder of the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers, to sign such a guarantee ahead of the vote in the budgets committee, together with José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission. A spokesman for Cyprus said that Christofias would sign the declaration.
Top-up funds
The sum of €3bn is part of a €9bn top-up request from Janusz Lewandowski, the European commissioner for financial programming and budget, to cover payment shortfalls in the 2012 budget – a request that derailed budget talks earlier last month. The deal struck last week adds €6 billion to the budget for 2012 and rolls over €2.9bn into 2013 (while €100 million will come from the Commission having pared back requests).
Schulz is now seeking water-tight guarantees that the member states will indeed find the money to cover the shortfall.
The gap mostly concerns structural funds. €1.5bn is for the closure of programmes from the previous programming period, 2000-06, where it is deemed that the delay has already been so great that further delay is not critical. €1.4bn is for projects where payments are currently suspended, pending checks.
While the Greens and some of the centre-left group of Socialists and Democrats – which was formerly led by Schulz – are unhappy with the budget, its adoption does not appear to be in question, despite Schulz’s bid for strong guarantees.
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