Amending budget 4/2024: update of revenue (own resources) and adjustments to some decentralised agencies
PURPOSE: presentation of Draft Amending Budget No 4/2024 to update revenue (own resources) and adjustments to some decentralised agencies.
CONTENT: the purpose of Draft Amending Budget (DAB) No 4 for the year 2024 is to update the revenue side of the budget to take account of the latest developments as regards:
- the updated own resources forecasts for the 2024 budget;
- to update other revenues such as the United Kingdom contribution and fines.
Additionally, DAB 4/2024 includes the following specific elements related to expenditure:
Reinforcement of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA)
New tasks have been allocated to ENISA which require the recruitment of one additional temporary agent and one additional seconded national expert, resulting in an overall increase of the related staff expenditure of EUR 0.139 million in 2024. The increase of the EU contribution to ENISA is budgetary neutral.
Reinforcement of the European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER)
ACER will take over additional activities, for which additional staff is required resulting in an overall increase of the staff expenditure of EUR 3.34 million. As regards the related expenditure, an amount of EUR 684 000 was already included in the 2024 budget, while a further amount of EUR 2.656 million is proposed to be made available through this Draft Amending Budget.
Reduction in the staffing and of the EU contribution to the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA)
The negotiations on the establishment of the new AMLA have taken longer than initially planned and therefore the setting up of the agency will start taking place only in 2024. This has led to a decrease of the staff numbers in 2024. Consequently, it is proposed to reduce the amount of appropriations needed in 2024 by EUR 3.812 million from the reserve.
Internalisation of sensitive critical posts in the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA)
To ensure that critical engineering tasks related to security are conducted by internal staff, the EUSPA needs additional staff. The necessary funding for these posts of EUR 0.3 million is proposed to be compensated by a corresponding reduction in the envelope of the Space Programme.
Increase of the EU contribution to the European Medicines Agency (EMA)
As a consequence of the Withdrawal Agreement in January 2020, the EMA was relocated from London to Amsterdam. Subsequently, the premises which hosted EMA’s headquarters in London have been sub-rented to the WeWork company. Following the financial difficulties experienced by WeWork and the recent renegotiation of the rental contract, the EU balancing contribution to the EMA needs to be increased to cover the reduction of the revenues to be received from the rent of the building. The overall impact on expenditure is therefore EUR 11.2 million in commitment and payments appropriations.
Increase of the EU contribution to the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust)
Over the past years, Eurojust’s expenditure has been under particular pressure due to strong inflation, which had a notable direct impact on salary expenditure as well as building and maintenance costs. To allow Eurojust to continue financing its operational expenditure, the Commission made available an amount of EUR 2.46 million to the agency in the course of 2023, while the Draft Budget 2025 contains an additional amount of EUR 2 million for this purpose. For the year 2024, it is proposed to reinforce the EU contribution to Eurojust by an amount of EUR 2 million, so as to keep the agency’s budget on a stable footing.
Reinforcement of the EU contribution to the European Union Agency for the operational management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice (EU-LISA)
A staff increase is requested resulting in an increase of EUR 13.685 million in commitment appropriations and EUR 1.045 million in payment appropriations. This increase is proposed to be fully offset by a reduction of the appropriations in the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF), which is therefore budgetary neutral. The staff increase in eu-LISA will be partially offset against Frontex.
Overall, the net impact of DAB 4/2024 on expenditure amounts to an increase of EUR 12 million in both commitment and payment appropriations.
Fines and penalty payments
Taking into account the amounts that have been cashed, it is proposed to increase the initial forecasts introduced in the 2024 budget (EUR 101 million) by EUR 513 million, thus totalling EUR 614 million.