1995 budget: section III

The Committee on Budgets completed the vote on the amendments and adopted the proposals for a resolution on the general budget for 1995 . The Committee took note of the decision adopted by the ECOFIN Council on 21 October 1994, which served to end the deadlock on the increase in the ceiling for GNP resources, Italy having lifted its 'veto' by accepting the compromise proposal put forward by the Council presidency. The Committee on Budgets confirmed the strategy proposed by its rapporteur, with clarification of a number of points in the light of this decision by the Council, namely: - the Committee confirmed the willingness to vote for a budget up to an appropriations limit equivalent to 1.21% of the GNP, with payment appropriations frozen at a level of 596 million ecus. These appropriations would remain frozen until ratification of the decision on increasing GNP resources. - the Committee reserved the right to examine the content of the compromise on milk quotas at the level of the Committee on Budgetary Control - the Committee made an appeal to national Parliaments to ratify this Council decision as quickly as possible and declared that once the ratification process had been completed, by way of a supplementary and amending budget, frozen payment appropriations would be made available to those budget lines to which they had initially been inscribed. The Committee added that these frozen payments in no way implied cutbacks to the policies which had been decided in respect of structural measures and nuclear fusion. As regards the revision of financial perspectives, the Committee on Budgets confirmed that an agreement would have to be concluded up until the end of November with a view to having a 1995 budget capable of financing the needs of the enlarged Community. In this respect it approved the appropriations inscribed at the first reading, subject to the adoption of the revised financial perspectives. In the same context the Committee declared itself in favour of strengthening Parliament's priorities in respect of spending on internal policies (category 3) and external policies (category 4). In category 3 it proposed reestablishing the draft-budget appropriations for those budget lines where the Council had made cuts without justification, and recommended that greater importance be attached to actions intended to promote employment within the framework of the White Paper, trans-European networks, cultural measures and actions in the field of education and training (Socrates, Leonardo, Youth for Europe); finally it called for greater efforts towards the peace process in Ireland. In category 4 the Committee declared itself in favour of increasing the level of aid for South Africa and for the development by the Union of a new initiative to promote socio-economic structural change in the countries of the Mediterranean basin (Meda programme). Finally, it stressed that the revision of the financial perspectives should give greater priority to the financing of the CFSP. In this respect it declared itself in favour of a greater level of action in support of Mostar through the Community budget. �