Supplementary and amending budget 2/2000

The Budget Committee of the European Parliament unanimously adopted MR. VIRRANKOSKI's (ELDR) motion for resolution on the supplementary estimates to Parliament's budget for the 2000 financial year, on condition that the Bureau of the Parliament would decide on 13 June 2000 in line with the decision of the Committee on Budgets of 6 June. The report seeks an amount of 15 MEUR to be added to item 206 ("Acquisition of immovable property") of the budget. The new amount for this budget line will then be 49 576 000 EUR instead of 34 576 000 EUR. In its explanatory statement, the report recalls that the margin in heading 5 of the financial perspective ("administrative expenditure") for the financial year 2000 is 90,7 MEUR. It has always been Parliament's policy to reduce the overall interest burden resulting from buildings policy to a minimum. Therefore, in the contracts that the EP has signed, it has always insisted on a clause allowing it to make advance payments. This policy has borne its fruits : due to the advance payments made so far the annual interest burden is reduced by 85 MEUR. As the margin in heading 5 of the financial perspective allows for an extra advance payment by the EP in 2000, the Committee on Budgets agrees today the Bureau's proposal that an amount of 15 MEUR be added to item 206 ("Acquisition of immovable property"). The extra advance payment will lead to annual savings of about 2,2 MEUR over a period of 10 years.�