Amending budget 4/2011: migration and refugee flows; own resources

PURPOSE: presentation of the Draft Amending Budget (DAB) No 4 for the 2011 budget.

CONTENT: this DAB No 4 for the year 2011 covers the following:

a revision of the forecast of Traditional Own Resources (TOR, i.e. customs duties and sugar sector levies), VAT and GNI bases, the budgeting of the relevant UK corrections as well as their financing and revision of financing of GNI reductions in favour of the Netherlands and Sweden in 2011, resulting in a change in the distribution between Member States of their own resources contributions to the EU budget;

• a reinforcement of the Union's resources to manage migration and refugee flows, further to the recent developments in the Southern Mediterranean, in particular through additional appropriations for the Frontex agency, the External Borders Fund, the European Return Fund and the European Refugee Fund. The total net increase of appropriations requested for these purposes amounts to EUR 41.1 million in commitment appropriations and EUR 43.9 million in payment appropriations;
• a reduction of the level of payment appropriations for the Energy projects under the European Economic Recovery Plan (EERP), amounting to EUR 43.9 million. This concerns in particular the Energy networks, and is due to a revision of the payment schedules for some beneficiaries of infrastructure projects.

Strengthening EU resources for migration and refugee flows: the recent developments in the Southern Mediterranean have led to high migratory pressure in the region. In line with the European Council conclusions of March 2011, the proposed reinforcement of EU actions under the External Borders Fund, the European Return Fund and the European Refugee Fund will allow supporting the efforts of the Member States most directly concerned, as well as to strengthen the capacities of the Frontex agency to carry out maritime surveillance activities in the Mediterranean. The corresponding additional needs in commitment appropriations will be partially met by redeployment of commitment appropriations within Title 18 (Home Affairs), whereas the additional needs in payment appropriations will be fully met by redeployment of payment appropriations from Title 32 (Energy).

1. Frontex: a reinforcement of EUR 30 million is requested in commitment appropriations for the operational expenditure of Frontex (budget item 18 02 03 02). At this stage, a corresponding amount of EUR 24 million is requested in payment appropriations (i.e. equivalent to 80% of the additional commitments). The remaining EUR 6 million in payment appropriations will only be needed towards the end of 2011, as payment appropriations are disbursed by Frontex on the basis of requests for payments made by Member States;

2. Solidarity and Management of Migration Flows: the basic acts of the External Borders Fund, the European Return Fund and the European Refugee Fund all foresee a certain percentage of their overall financial envelopes for so-called 'Community actions', in order to finance transnational actions or actions of interest to the Community as a whole, in particular with a view to facing emergency situations which require urgent action. The extraordinary scale of the current events in the Southern Mediterranean entails a significant burden for the Member States concerned, which is the reason why the Commission proposes to raise the allocations for Community actions to the maximum foreseen in the respective basic acts, over and above the appropriations pre-allocated to Member States under shared management. This topping-up requires a reinforcement of appropriations for all three funds mentioned above, to be made available in particular to Italy, Greece, Malta and Cyprus.

The combined reinforcements requested for the External Borders Fund, the European Return Fund and the European Refugee Fund amount to EUR 22.2 million in commitment appropriations and EUR 19.9 million in payment appropriations.

The combined net financial impact of this amending budget is EUR 41.1 million in commitment appropriations and zero in payment appropriations.