The European budget for 2014-2020 has drawn intense controversies and its adoption has failed. The Parliament, the Council and the Commission have to reach an agreement so that the budget will be implemented at the beginning of 2014. If the agreement doesn’t exist, the 2013 figures will be applied.
On 13 March 2013, the European Parliament has rejected the EU multiannual budget proposal following the negotiations on 7 and 8 February 2013, EP members insisting on increased flexibility and efficiency within the budget. The resolution, elaborated by the European People’s Party (EPP), Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), the Green Party, European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL), was adopted with 506 votes “for”, 161 “against” and 23 “abstentions”.
The resolution underlines the increasing problem of breaching payment obligations which leads to unpaid bills and the endangering of EU programmes. Last year, the breach of payment obligations led to fund deficit for several EU programmes, such as Erasmus and the Framework Programme for Research and the Social Fund. To that end, the Parliament demands the clarification of the bills unpaid since 2012 before concluding the negotiations for MFF and also a political position from the council to ensure that all the bills due in 2013 should be paid this year to avoid the rolling of deficit in the new financial framework. According to the institution, “legally, EU cannot have a deficit”.
The resolution offers the Parliament’s negotiators a strong mandate to ensure that the MFF is flexible enough to permit the optimal use of available funds. Also, EP demands the review of the MFF costs to provide the new selected Parliament and Commission with the opportunity of influencing the budgets that they would get from current legislators. Moreover, the Parliament wants a system with internal resources to finance the EU budget and underlines the fact that all EU costs have to pass through the budget.
Therefore, PE “insists upon the availability of initiating real negotiations with the Council based upon all the provisions of the MFF Regulation and of the Interinstitutional Agreement so that, in the future, the union will have a modern, future-oriented, flexible and transparent budget capable to generate economic growth, to create jobs and to eliminate the gap between political commitments and the budgetary means of the European Union”, the institution informs.
EP believes that MFF should ensure the successful implementation of the strategy Europe 2020 and to equip EU with the ne-cessary means that would allow it to recover from the crisis.
Also, the multiannual financial framework for 2014-2020 has to answer to the needs of significant growth of investments dedicated to innovation, research and development, infrastructure and meeting the EU objectives on counteracting climate change.
In February, the European leaders reached an agreement on the budget for the next 7 years according to which the total sum of costs for EU28 (Croatia will become EU member state on 1 July 2013) is of EUR 959,988 Million in commitment credits (1% of the Gross National Income) and of EUR 908,400 Million in payment credits (9.98% in EU’s Gross National Income). Regarding the funds for the Connecting Europe, they have been significantly reduced with EUR 23 Billion allocated for transport infrastructure projects. With a 1/3 reduction of the initial EUR 32 Billion, transport seems not to be a priority sector in the next programming period.
Little time has remained for adopting the legislative instruments on the implementation of the different MFF programmes and only the prompt conclusion of interinstitutional negotiations between the Parliament, the Council and the Commission could allow the budget to be executed since the beginning of the next MFF, on 1 January 2014. The Parliament negotiates the legal basis for the different EU programmes but for that, the EP and the Council will decide on the basis of joint decisions. If no agreement is concluded until the beginning of 2014, the figures of the 2013 MFF adjusted to the inflation rate will apply.
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