Interinstitutional agreement on financial factsheets

The committee adopted the report by Joan COLOM I NAVAL (PES, E) approving the Interinstitutional Agreement on financial statements aimed at improving financial programming and the availability of resources necessary for implementing programmes. It pointed out that on many occasions new initiatives had been launched without taking sufficient account of the existing financial framework. The committee felt that the text agreed by the three institutions on 20 July 2000 represented a balanced compromise which did not encroach on the powers of the Commission and which improved upsteam scrutiny by the budgetary authority. However, the joint statement on financial programming that had been approved made sense only within the context of multiannual planning as governed by the Interinstitutional Agreement. The report also called for adjustments to Parliament's internal procedures, if the statement was adopted by Parliament, providing for the Committee on Budgets to draw Parliament's attention to the possible financial implications of own-initiative reports or amendments to legislative texts and give its assessment of whether or not they were compatible with the financial framework.�