Members give way on budget threats

MEPs have backed down on threats to block the release of around €500 million in EU funds until next year unless the European Commission can prove it is being spent properly.

They have also agreed to release €50 million for new Commission officials this year rather than wait until next spring.

In a vote at the plenary session in Strasbourg last week (26 October), MEPs retreated from a threat from the budgets committee to keep back part of the €122 billion budget for 2007 until the Commission had proved that the money was being spent effectively.

MEPs on the committee had voted on 10 October to withhold around 30% of spending on 40 budget lines until they were satisfied the money was being spent on time and without problems.

The blocked funds were in areas where external auditors had identified problems. But in last week’s vote the full Parliament decided that it would agree to release the funds in December when a final deal is expected to be struck on next year’s budget. Budgets committee MEPs had also threatened to sit on €50 million earmarked to hire Commission officials from the new member states until next spring, by which time the Commission should have justified the need for additional staff.

But the full Parliament voted to release the funds earlier provided it had received adequate assurances from Budget Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite? next month. The Commissioner will meet MEPs in November to explain the need to hire new staff. She has warned that putting funds for staff posts into a reserve would "force the Commission to freeze recruitment next year" although the Council of Ministers and MEPs had agreed to recruit more than 800 new officials in 2007.

MEPs also changed tactics in their bid to win more control over the EU’s foreign policy. Instead of backing a demand by MEPs on the budgets committee to keep back €14 million for special foreign policy representatives to regional troublespots, members voted in the plenary to put the money into the budget line for administrative expenditure in an attempt to gain more influence over the selections of special envoys.

MEPs have backed down on threats to block the release of around €500 million in EU funds until next year unless the European Commission can prove it is being spent properly.

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