Financial programming 2002-2006: financial perspective headings 3 and 4

The European Parliament adopted the resolution by Joan COLOM I NAVAL (PES, E) on the communication on financial programming 2002-2006. It stresses the tentative nature of financial programming and the primacy of the annual budget decision via which it voices its priorities and its wish to maintain traditional activities that have proven their benefit to citizens and European added value. It calls for the Commission, in tandem with legislative consultation to establish or renew budget-funded measures, to consult the budgetary authority in any new non-legislative initiative or any shedding of activities with a budget-related financial programming impact. Moreover, the Parliament stresses that presenting multiannual-programme amounts including a future inflation rate estimated a priori (in euro at current prices) makes the Union's financial efforts less visible and makes estimating the unused margins below the ceilings for headings 3 and 4 less reliable. It therefore calls on the Commission to specify in its proposals whether multiannual spending amounts are expressed in constant-price euro or in euro at current prices and, if the latter is the case, to specify all the figures in the financial statement in both current and constant euros.�