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Amending budget 3/2015: surplus from the financial year 2014

2015/2077(BUD)

The Committee on Budgets adopted the report by Eider GARDIAZABAL RUBIAL (S&D, ES) on the Council position on Draft amending budget No 3/2015 of the European Union for the financial year 2015 - entering the surplus of the financial year 2014.

Draft amending budget aims to enter in the 2015 budget the surplus from the 2014 financial year, amounting to EUR 1 435 million.

Members recalled the main components of that surplus and stated that on the expenditure side, the under-implementation for Section III is particularly low with EUR 29 million for 2014 and EUR 6 million for 2013 carryovers, but increased to EUR 101 million for the other institutions. The very low under-implementation in Section III underlines the ongoing shortage of payment appropriations which will remain a key challenge in implementing the 2015 budget.

Following the budgetary negotiations: taking note of Draft amending budget No 3/2015, Members recalled that in the framework of the 2015 budgetary negotiations, Council insisted on shifting the payments related to the mobilisation of the European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF) in Draft amending budgets No 5/2014 and No 7/2014 to the 2015 budget for a total amount of EUR 126.7 million.

They considered that given the surplus as presented in the present Draft amending budget No 3/2015, these two 2014 Draft amending budgets, covering in total 7 EUSF cases, could have easily been paid for from the 2014 budget.

In general, Members regretted a tendency in Council not to honour its commitments towards countries in need which have fulfilled the conditions for mobilising the EUSF through the mobilisation of the additional resources as foreseen for the special instruments, but rather by taking money away from the existing programmes. They welcomed however the fact that the Council did not follow this approach for Draft amending budget No 4/2015 linked to the mobilisation of the EUSF for Romania, Bulgaria and Italy, presented at the same time as amending budget No 3/2015.

Members recalled that the adoption of Draft amending budget No 3/2015 will reduce the share of the GNI contributions from Member States to the Union budget by EUR 1 435 million and will therefore more than compensate for their contribution to the financing of Draft amending budget No 4/2015.

They underlined Parliament’s willingness to adopt both Draft amending budget No 3/2015 and Draft amending budget No 4/2015 as soon as possible as presented by the Commission and called on the Parliament to approve the Council position on Draft amending budget No 3/2015.