Amending budget 5/2005: revision of the forecast of own resources, surplus from the Guarantee Fund and mobilisation of the Solidarity Fund for Slovakia

PURPOSE : to present the Preliminary Draft Amending Budget No 5 to the 2005 general budget.

CONTENT : the present Preliminary Draft Amending Budget covers the following points:

- the revision of the forecast of own resources, both traditional i.e. customs duties, agricultural duties and sugar levies, as well as VAT and GNI bases and the budgeting of the relevant UK corrections as well as their financing, resulting in a change in the distribution between Member States of their own resources contributions to the EU budget;

- Article 7 of Council Decision 2000/597/EC, Euratom on the system of the European Communities' own resources states that "surplus from the Guarantee Fund arising from external measures, transferred to the revenue account in the budget, shall be regarded as constituting own resources". Thus in addition to the revision of the forecasts of own resources, this PDAB enters the surplus in the general budget, at 31 December 2004, from the Guarantee Fund for external measures. This amounts to EUR 187 130 000;

- an additional amount of EUR 338 831 402 is being budgeted as a result of the repayment stipulated in Article 1 point 2 of Council Regulation 2273/2004/EC, Euratom. The reason for this special "surplus" is that once a country accedes to the European Union, all operations carried out for its benefit prior to accession now fall outside the scope of Council Regulation 2728/94/EC, Euratom establishing a Guarantee Fund for external actions. Therefore this amount results from the repayment to the general budget of the amount corresponding to the provision (9%) of outstanding capital liabilities for 10 new Member States at 1 May 2004;

- the mobilisation of the EU Solidarity Fund relating to a wind storm that struck Slovakia on 19/20 November 2004. This amounts to additional commitment appropriations of EUR 5 667 578.