Commission told to justify cash for staff

Members of the European Parliament’s budgets committee want the European Commission to justify its request for funds to hire 801 new officials next year. In a vote on the 2007 budget on Tuesday (10 October) MEPs agreed to keep back €50 million which they would only release once the Commission drew up a report evaluating its staff needs and setting out how it plans to redeploy staff in line with agreed policy priorities.

Although MEPs voted to increase the funds for posts to the level requested by the Commission in its initial draft budget, reversing the cut agreed by EU finance ministers in July, the Commission is not happy with the Parliament’s demand. A spokesman for Budget Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite? said that putting funds for staff posts into a reserve would "force the Commission to freeze recruitment next year". The Commission had been planning to hire 801 staff from new member states including 250 from Romania and Bulgaria which are set to join the EU on 1 January.

MEPs also voted this week to cut the EU’s budget for Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) by 50% or €87 million. The committee is withholding €73m from the CFSP budget proper and transferring €14m to Commission delegations in third countries. UK Conservative MEP James Elles, who has drafted the Parliament’s position on the 2007 budget, said he wanted to ensure that special representatives were not just "friends of [EU foreign policy chief Javier] Solana".

MEPs voted for a total budget of €121.6 billion (in terms of payments) for 2007, or 1.04% of EU gross national income, an increase of €5.1bn compared to the deal reached by finance ministers in first reading in July.

The Parliament will vote on the 2007 budget on 26 October during a plenary session.

Members of the European Parliament’s budgets committee want the European Commission to justify its request for funds to hire 801 new officials next year. In a vote on the 2007 budget on Tuesday (10 October) MEPs agreed to keep back €50 million which they would only release once the Commission drew up a report evaluating its staff needs and setting out how it plans to redeploy staff in line with agreed policy priorities.