Grasser cold-shoulders MEPs’ budget demand

By Simon Taylor

Date: 23/03/06

Members of the European Parliament are calling for a EUR 12 billion increase in the EU's budget for 2007-13. But their request has been rebuffed by Austrian Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser as "wholly unrealistic".

MEPs set out their demands at a negotiating session with the Austrian presidency of the EU and the European Commission this week (21 March). Deputies want an increase in the total budget agreed by EU leaders in December 2005 of 1.5% to around EUR 875bn.

But Grasser hinted that the maximum possible rise would only be around EUR 1.8bn, in line with the outcome of negotiations between the Council of Ministers and Parliament following agreement on the 2000-06 budget deal struck in Berlin in 1999. This produced an increase of 0.21% compared to EU leaders' agreed total.

Despite rejection of the Parliament's request for a substantially higher increase in funds, MEPs have stepped back from a full-on confrontation with the Council by postponing a decision to suspending the co-operation agreement with the Council and the Commission.

Janusz Lewandowski, the head of the Parliament's negotiating team on the 2007-13 budget deal, said that the negotiating session had produced "some progress". Parliament had been expected to vote on a resolution suspending the inter-institutional agreement at its plenary session this week, effectively moving to annual budget setting.

German centre-right MEP Reimer Böge said that the decision to postpone the resolution did not mean it was cancelled.

He said Parliament's priorities for spending rises were trans-European transport networks, student exchange programmes, training schemes and nature protection programmes.

But the Council has not agreed to increase the so-called flexibility instrument from the current level of EUR 200 million a year. This fund is used to deal with unexpected crises such as the Asian tsunami and reconstruction needs in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Commission has proposed increasing this fund by EUR 50m a year giving a total of EUR 550m by 2013.

Dutch MEP Jan Mulder, the Liberal group's representative on Parliament's negotiating team, said that the Council had agreed to the Parliament's demands for improvements in member states' management of EU funds by providing senior-level declarations about the effectiveness controls. But this was contested by EU officials who said that Spain and Germany still opposed national-level declarations because of their decentralised administrations.

MEPs will meet the EU presidency for another negotiating session on 4 April.

Article reports on the negotiations between representatives of the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Austrian Presidency of the Council on the EU's multiannual budget for 2007-2013. At a negotiating session on 21 March 2006 MEPs set out their demands of an increase of €12 billion compared to the agreement presented by EU leaders in December 2005. This was rejected as 'wholly unrealistic' by Austrian Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser. Another negotiating session was scheduled for 4 April 2006.

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