Supplementary and amending budget 1/1997: section III Commission, section V Court of auditors

Following Parliament's opinion, the Council adopted, at second reading, a draft supplementary and amending budget (no. 1/97), taking a position on each of the amendments adopted by Parliament. Following the second reading, the 1997 budget totals ECU 89 135.05 million in commitment appropriations and ECU 82 364.1 million in payment appropriations. The new rates of increase for non-compulsory expenditure (NCE) are 7.38% in commitment appropriations and 2.37% in payment appropriations. With regard to Parliament's amendments, the Council accepted the amendment for the creation of 10 new posts (1 A2, 5 A4, 1 A5, 3 A6) to establish the structures needed for the reorganization of the consumer policy and consumer health protection services. It also accepted the amendment relating to the appropriations needed in order to implement such reorganization. Regarding internal policies, the Council also accepted the amendment which provides for the financing of appropriations to be entered on the new line B5-103 (projects designed to improve consumer health) by taking ECU 0.5 million in commitment appropriations and ECU 0.2 million in payment appropriations from the appropriations entered in the reserve for line B2-5104 (Office for Veterinary and Plant Health Inspection and Control), in view of the Commission's decision to withdraw its proposal to set up this agency. On the other hand, the Council rejected the amendments relating to the reserve for the agencies and to research, on the grounds that the preliminary draft supplementary and amending budget submitted by the Commission had a limited objective. Lastly, the Council modified the amendment concerning the creation of 18 new posts at the Court of Auditors (1 A3, 12 A7, 3 C5 directly linked to the audit and 1 A7 and 1 C5 for administration) by bringing down the total number of new posts to 10 (3 A3 and 7 A7 linked to the audit). The amount of revenue shown in this amendment was adjusted accordingly.�