Financial perspective 2000-2006: adjustment to take account of implementation

PURPOSE : to propose a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on the adjustment of the financial perspective to take account of implementation. CONTENT : paragraphs 16 to 18 of the Interinstitutional Agreement of 6 May 1999 provides for the Commission to notify the two arms of the budgetary authority of the adjustments to the financial perspective considered necessary in the light of implementation. The Commission's examination of implementation in 2000 from these two angles prompts it to present the following proposal for the adjustment of the financial perspective to the budgetary authority. Firstly, unlike its predecessor, the new Interinstitutional Agreement no longer sets out the principle that unused allocations may be transferred for the whole of heading 2 and for the whole period covered by the financial perspective. This type of transfer is now limited to the unused allocations for the first year of the financial perspective and is conditional on a delay in the adoption of the programmes. It should be noted that with regard to innovation measures these have never been covered by multiannual programming. However, the guidelines which the Commission recently adopted for innovation measures after consulting the Parliament represent a change in practice for the ERDF: innovation measures are now conducted under multiannual programmes with the same implementing procedure as for programmes under Objective 1, Objective 2 and Community initiatives. The Commission draws the budgetary authority's attenion to this specific situation. Operations under the Cohesion Fund or techncial assistance do not, however, fit in with this idea of a multiannual programme, even if some of them may be implemented over a period exceeding one year. Under-utilisation of allocations in the first year cannot be directly attributed to a delay in the adoption of the programmes covering the whole of the period. One of the purposes of the financial perspective provides an opportunity to check budget implementation to ensure that the link established when the financial framework is drawn up remains valid and to make any adjustments that are needed to the overall ceiling for appropriations for payment. In any event, there will be a regular review of whether the ceiling on appropriations for payment can accomodate actual requiremets at each of the annual adjustment exercises provided for by the Interinstitutional Agreement. On the occasion, on the basis of information emerging from the first year of application of the financial framework, special attention will have to be given to: - the trend in applications for reimbursements presented by the Member States in respect of the Structural Funds; - the rate of clearance for Cohesion Fund commitments entered into, in particular to discover whether the delay in relation to the forecasts in the financial perepctive is being made up; - the progress in payments under the two new pre-accession instruments ISPA and SAPARD.�