2004 Budget: section III, Commission

Before proceeding with the second reading of the draft budget for 2004, the Council held a conciliation meeting with a delegation from the European Parliament under the Interinstitutional Agreement of 6 May 1999 on budgetary discipline. The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission agreed on the following: - to accept amending letter No 3/2004 as proposed by the Commission; - to accept amending letter No 2/2004 concerning agricultural expenditure and international fisheries agreements as proposed by the Commission; - to accept amending letter No 1/2004 with the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument for an amount of EUR 95 million for Iraq; - to confirm the global amount of EUR 200 million for 2003 and 2004. The Commission will seek reallocation of appropriations under Heading 4 in 2003 for between EUR 5 and 10 million in order to allow for a corresponding reduction in the 2004 budget; - to fix the amount of the CFSP budget at EUR 62,6 million for 2004, following an exchange of letters between the European Parliament and the Council; - to accept preliminary draft amending budget No 8/2003 as proposed by the Commission and to reduce the 2004 budget accordingly. A joint statement on administrative expenditure in 2005 and 2006 has been agreed; - to accept preliminary draft amending budget No 7/2003 as proposed by the Commission; - the increased rate of payment appropriations with respect to 2003 (AB 1 to 5 included) shall not exceed 2,3% for EU 25 at the end of the 2004 budgetary procedure in December. The European Parliament and the Council invite the Commission to propose a preliminary draft amending budget in 2004 in the event of a shortage of payment appropriations; The following statements have been made: 1) concerning the programmes adopted under the codecision procedure : referring to the joint statement of 16 July 2003, the Parliament and the Council, having reached a political agreement on the indicative reference amounts to be included in the basic acts of Community programmes decided under the codecision procedure following enlargement, invite the Commission to present without delay the appropriate legislative proposal(s) and confirm that they will make every effort to take duly into consideration, in the codecision procedure, the amounts attached to this statement, in time for their possible application as from the date of entry into force of the Accession Treaty. 2) as regards the basic acts for grants (ex A-30), the following statement ahs been incuded: The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission will continue their cooperation in order to adopt the basic legal acts before the end of 2003 or at the latest at the very beginning of 2004. They will do their utmost to speed up institutional procedures at the second reading of proposals in codecision and avoid further conciliation, in order to adopt the legal basis formally in March 2004 at the latest. Their agreement on the legislative acts will be based on compliance with the following elements, agreed upon at the conciliation meeting on 24 November 2003: - the duration of all the programmes will be limited to theperiod 2004-2006; - the amounts agreed for this period are those detailed in the annex; - the list of beneficiaries should be included in the legal basis for the programmes concerning civic participation and culture for the years 2004 and 2005, as adopted by the European Parliament at its first reading of the draft budget for 2004. 3) on info-points and rural carrefours : the two institutions confirm the importance that they attach to the functioning of the Info-Points system and Carrefours and to the solution of the current problems. Within this framework the Parliament and the Council approve the intention of the Commission to take a transitional decision in order to maintain for the year 2004 the grants to the Info-Points and the rural Carrefours which are currently receiving financial aid from the EU budget. This decision would be accompanied by specific monitoring and control measures.�