Supplementary and amending budget 5/1999

PURPOSE: to draw up a preliminary draft supplementary and amending budget no. 5 for the 1999 financial year. CONTENT: At the trialogue meeting of 07.09.1999 before adoption of supplementary and amending budget No. 4/99, the Commission proposed to the two arms of the Budgetary Authority the idea of a preliminary draft amending budget No. 5/99 to supplement payment appropriations for external action (for which total additional requirements were put at EUR 650 million, with around 450 million EURO covered by amending budget No. 4/99 and the omnibus transfer, if the Commission proposal is approved) and to increase the number of new posts for OLAF from 15 to 30. This is the purpose of this preliminary draft amending budget: a total increase of EUR 202.2 million is proposed for external action broken down as follows: - EUR 147.2 million for the Phare programme, - EUR 40 million for the Obnova programme, and - EUR 15 million for macro-financial assistance to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. All the payment appropriations required can be redeployed from EAGGF Guarantee appropriations, which will not be used in full in 1999. Preliminary draft amending budget No. 5/99 can be described as following on from amending budget No. 4/99 and omnibus transfer No. 53/99. Following on from the previous amending budget, it is proposed that the secretariat for the Supervisory Committee be strengthened, that anti-fraud measures be stepped up, that the nucleus of a legal monitoring team be created to monitor national procedures and that the collection and analysis of information be expanded as an indispensible instrument in combating fraud. These posts do not require any additional appropriation under the 1999 budget.