1st Financial Report on financial implementation of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD): 2007 financial year

Summary:

The 2007 preliminary draft budget 2007 was adopted by the Commission and proposed to the Budgetary Authority in April 2006.

The European Parliament adopted the 2007 budget in its plenary session of December 2006. The commitment and payment appropriations for the EAFRD budget lines, heading 2, amounted to EUR 9 897.6 and 4 954.9 million respectively, which represents a reduction of EUR 2 468.6 and 1 236.4 million in comparison to the initial proposal. This reduction was the result of a Parliament's amendment[2] to put in the reserve 20% of the appropriations requested for rural development programmes.

The budget authority approved the transfer from the reserve to the rural development budget item in March 2007, once the European Parliament agreed on the Commission's revised proposal on voluntary modulation.