2009 budget: Section III, Commission

PURPOSE: to present the letter of amendment No 1 to the draft general budget of the European Communities for the financial year 2009.

CONTENT: on 15 September 2008 the Commission submitted to the Council letter of amendment No 1 to the preliminary draft budget for 2009.

That letter of amendment concerns expenditure in Section III – Commission – of the general budget, and in particular the following (refer to summary 10/09/2008):

• the inclusion of an additional amount, of EUR 40 million in commitment appropriations, to support the stability and development of Kosovo;
• the inclusion of an additional amount, of EUR 139 million in commitment appropriations and EUR 180 million in payment appropriations, to support the Palestinian authority;

• the creation of a new budget article 19 06 06 ("Consular cooperation");
• the budgetary adjustments relating to the third extension of the mandate of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) to Community actions in the TEMPUS and ICI programme fields. The Agency's establishment plan has been amended so that eight temporary agent posts can be added in 2009 for the second extension of the mandate;

• the release of the appropriations which were entered in the 2009 PDB following the extension of the Executive Agency for the Public Health Programme and the Trans-European Transport Network Executive Agency.

On 2 October 2008, the Council established letter of amendment No 1 to the draft budget for the financial year 2009 on the basis of letter of amendment No 1 to the preliminary draft budget for 2009 as submitted by the Commission.

Accordingly, the commitment appropriations entered in reserve for Articles 19 08 01 02 (EUR 100 million) and 22 02 02 (EUR 60 million) that appeared in the draft budget for 2009 will be deleted.

The margin remaining under the ceiling for Heading 4 amounts to EUR 110 829 640.