2000 budget : other sections

The draft budget drawn up by the Council for administrative expenditure and the other Community institutions amounts to 4.664 billion euros for all the institutions (of which 1.635 billion euros for the other institutions, including the European Parliament and the Ombudsman). The margin provided by the Council's draft budget is 157 million euros and represents an increase of 3.6% in comparison with 1999. The draft budget covers the needs for new posts of all the institutions (including the Commission), it being understood that the possible new Statute for Members of the European Parliament should be financed in part from this allocation. In particular, it provides for 63 additional permanent posts for the Council (12), the Court of Justice (45) and the ESC/CoR (6). As far as the Commission is concerned, the request for new posts will be the subject of letters of amendment to the preliminary draft budget (see BUD982186). The Council refers to the difficulties encountered by the other institutions to not exceed the 1.9% increase allowed for by the Commission for current operating expenditure that result from the need to cover expenses linked to the imperative adaptation of salaries of their officials such as provided for in the existing provisions of the Statute. As a consequence, the Council asked the Commission to propose a text seeking to revise the Statute of officials with respect to the system of remunerations. This modification would also include a chapter dealing with the reform of the pensions system with a view to including savings measures. The Council has applied the principle of budgetary rigour to the budgets of the other institutions and applied the following principles for the drawing up of its draft budget: 1) limited growth in expenses with an unavoidable exception (entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty, renewal of the mandate of the members of certain institutions); 2) limited creating of posts which would be focused on certain sectors following maximum redeployment; 3) refusal to convert or regrade in the name of careers policy; 4) keeping the standard rate of abatement at its current level. In the Council's draft budget, the creation of posts was offset as far as possible by a reduction in C posts in favour of A posts. Lastly, measures were taken to give certain tasks to external organisations and with a view to changing certain contracts of external advisers in temporary posts. As far as the OLAF (Community Anti-Fraud Office) is concerned, the Council decided to provide for the necessary staff via redeployment within part A of the budget on headings 1, 2, 5 and 7 of the Union's budget.�