The European Parliament adopted by 525 votes to 20, with 13 abstentions, a resolution approving, unamended, the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on the mobilisation of the Flexibility Instrument to complement the financing in the 2011 budget, beyond the ceilings of heading 1a and 4.
After having examined all possibilities for re-allocating appropriations under heading 1a and heading 4, at the conciliation meeting on 11 November 2010, the two arms of the budgetary authority agreed to mobilise the Flexibility Instrument. The amounts for the following programmes are as follows:
Parliament notes that, despite contained reinforcements in commitments on a limited number of budget items, the ceilings of subheading 1a and heading 4 do not allow for an adequate financing of selected priorities carried by the Parliament and the Council. It welcomes, therefore, the agreement reached during conciliation concerning the use of the Flexibility Instrument for the financing of the Lifelong Learning Programme and Competitiveness and Innovation Programme under subheading 1a, and the financing of financial assistance to Palestine, peace process and UNRWA under heading 4 for a total amount of EUR 105 million.
It reiterates that the mobilisation of this instrument highlights, once more, the crucial need for the EU budget to be increasingly flexible.