Amending budget 5/2004: other sections, follow-up of the 2004 enlargement, publication of the acquis, remunerations

PURPOSE: presentation of a third draft amending budget to the 2004 budget to give substance to the decisions taken at the conciliation meeting of 24 November 2003 with respect to, among other things, the publication of the acquis in the languages of the new Member States. CONTENT: In the first place, this draft amending budget brings into line the appropriations awarded to the institutions for the publication of the acquis in the languages of the new Member States. It also adjusts the appropriations required for remunerations, to match them to the establishment plans, which were altered significantly from past years in order to take into account the administrative requirements connected with enlargement. 1) publication of the acquis: at the conciliation meeting, it was agreed that the Commission and the Council could present a preliminary draft amending budget to cover any additional needs for the publication of the acquis. It was thought that this would be necessary because the number of pages was higher than initially forecast and the programming of the arrival of the translations at OPOCE (Official Publications Office of the Union) had changed. However, recent information from OPOCE suggests that the Commission will no longer need to provide additional appropriations for the acquis in 2004 as the cost per page published has been reduced. Only the Council's additional needs are therefore included in this preliminary draft budget (EUR 10.5 million). 2) Remunerations: the adjustment concerning remunerations is to reconcile the decisions taken at the end of 2003 on the establishment plan in connection with enlargement and the salary review. With the present budgets as adopted by the budgetary authority at the end of 2003, the institutions would be forced to leave vacant some of the posts allocated for enlargement in order to cover their obligations under the Staff Regulations. In order to deal with this problem which was already known at the time of the conciliation on 24 November, the two arms of the budgetary authority agreed to leave an adequate margin in heading 5 so that a correction could be made once the exact amount had been calculated. Apart from remunerations, this draft amending budget also concerns pensions. All the institutions are affected by these adjustments. Parliament, however, has decided to make the adjustment by means of a transfer within its present budget and is not therefore involved in this preliminary draft amending budget. The case of the European Data-Protection Supervisor is also special because of the recent appointment of the members of this institution. It too is not involved in this preliminary draft amending budget. The Commission also proposes other changes to the 2004 budget in connection with the remarks to certain budget lines which proved necessary after the budget was adopted and whose overall budgetary effect is neutral. Conclusion: the overall size of this draft amending budget thus amounts to EUR 83.797 million.�