Financial perspective, revision 2001-2006: mobilisation of the flexibility instrument for Serbia

The committee adopted the report by Joan COLOM I NAVAL (PES, E) approving the proposal on mobilisation of the flexibility instrument provided for in the Interinstitutional Agreement, involving a total of EUR 200m to finance reconstruction work in Serbia for the financial year 2001 which could not be financed within the limits of the ceiling set for external action under the financial perspective. The committee nevertheless stressed that the fact that the flexibility instrument had been used for two years running (the 2000 and 2001 budgetary procedures) was tending to distort the original nature of that instrument. It pointed out that most of the revisions to previous financial perspectives had been carried out to meet multiannual requirements, and that the requirements emerging in 1999 and 2000 for this particular instance would continue to exist in subsequent years and at all events in 2002. The rapporteur was therefore critical of the Council's reluctance to revise the ceiling for external action under the financial perspective.�