EU Ready For Agreement On 2011 Budget
MEPs are ready for an agreement on the 2011 budget within the limits set by the Council, provided EU governments accept Parliament’s request for budget flexibility and an agreement on a future working method for EU funding.
This was the message in Parliament’s resolution on the on-going negotiations on the 2011 budget, adopted on Thursday.
The resolution was adopted by an overwhelming majority (486 in favour, 64 against and 21 abstentions).
MEPs are ready to “facilitate an agreement on the 2011 Budget and related elements within a very tight timeframe” provided three conditions are met:
Firstly, Parliament wants an agreement on genuine flexibility mechanisms that would be decided by the EP and by qualified majority in the Council.
Before the Lisbon Treaty came into force, the budget could be changed by up to 0.03% of the EU’s GNI, provided this change was backed by qualified majority in Council and approved by MEPs.
This mechanism was used to release funding for the Galileo project and to provide €1bn to the EU food facility for emergency aid to developing countries suffering from rising food prices.
What Parliament wants is to keep this flexibility in the future.
Secondly, MEPs want the Commission to present a substantive proposal on new own resources plus a commitment from the Council to discuss these proposals with Parliament within the negotiating process of the next long-term budget framework as envisaged in the 2006 Inter-Institutional Agreement on budgetary matters.
Commission President José Manuel Barroso told MEPs during Tuesday’s plenary debate on the budget that the Commission would put forward such proposals before the end of June 2011.
Thirdly, the Treaty (Article 312, 5) requires the three institutions to “take any measure necessary” to facilitate the adoption of the next long-term budget framework.
The final condition is therefore that the three institutions must agree on a working method, making clear how to put this into effect.
“In order to reach a rapid and good deal for the EU, we need movement from the Council and we are ready to negotiate. We need movement on the European Parliament’s role in negotiations about the next Multiannual Financial Framework, a commitment to have a full debate on own resources and on genuine flexibility mechanisms which respect the existing principles for revisions and would help to finance policies agreed in the Lisbon Treaty.” said EP President Jerzy Buzek.
The first round of budget negotiations started with a Commission proposal in April and was followed by a Council position in August and a Parliament position in October.
The original plan was to agree during the conciliation period, which ended on 15 November.
Since the institutions could not agree, the Commission will propose a new draft budget, probably on 1 December.
Parliament’s Committee on Budgets will discuss this at its meeting of 1-2 December.
The Commission will present a proposal for the next long-term budget framework (also known as the Multiannual Financial Framework, MFF, or the Financial Perspective) in the summer of 2011.
Topics: 2010, agreement, budget, business, developing countries, economic development, economic growth, economic recovery, Economy, employment, EU, Euro, Europe, European Commission, European Parliament, European Union, food, framework, funding, Galileo project, Governance, government, investment, jobs, Jose Manuel Barroso, Lisbon Treaty, MEP's, moniter, monitor, negotiations, news, Parliament, plenary debate, resolution, society
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