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Amending budget 2/2016: surplus of the financial year 2015

2016/2051(BUD)

The Committee on Budgets adopted the report by José Manuel FERNANDES (EPP, PT) on the Council position on Draft amending budget No 2/2016 of the European Union for the financial year 2016: Entering the surplus of the financial year 2015.

Members recalled that the Draft amending budget No 2/2016 aims to enter in the 2016 budget the surplus from the 2015 financial year, amounting to EUR 1 349 million.

The main components of that surplus are a positive outturn on income of EUR 980 million, an under-spending in expenditure of EUR 187 million, and exchange rate differences amounting to EUR 182 million.

Yet again, Members noted that the high rate of implementation in Section III (Commission) underlines the pressure on payment appropriations which still represented a key challenge in 2015 and which is expected to reappear in the last years of the current Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).

Members observed that the adoption of Draft amending budget No 2/2016 will reduce the share of GNI contributions from Member States to the Union budget in 2016 by EUR 1 349 million. They urged, once again, the Member States to use the opportunity of such a reflow to honour their pledges in relation to the refugee crisis and to match the Union contribution to the two dedicated Union Trust Funds.

They also noted with concern that in spring 2016 Member States have only contributed EUR 82 million to the Africa Trust Fund and EUR 69 million to the Madad Trust Fund on the Syrian crisis, while the Union's contributions stand at EUR 1.8 billion and more than EUR 500 million respectively.

According to Members, instead of adjusting the GNI contribution, the Union budget should be enabled to reuse any surplus resulting from under-implementation of appropriations or from fines imposed on companies for breaching Union competition law in order to deal with its financing needs, especially in the context of payment shortages.

While hoping that this matter shall be settled as part of the revision of the MFF, Members called on the European Parliament to approve the Council position on Draft amending budget No 2/2016.